Voyria
Voyria tenella
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Plantae
(unranked):
Angiosperms
(unranked):
Eudicots
(unranked):
Asterids
Order:
Gentianales
Family:
Gentianaceae
Genus:
Voyria

Species

See text

Synonyms

Leiphaimos Schltdl. & Cham.

Voyria, commonly known as ghostplants,[1] is a genus of 20 species[2] of herbaceous perennial plants, belonging to the family Gentianaceae. They are mostly native to warm temperate and tropical regions of the Caribbean, Central America and South America, except for V. primuloides, which is found in West and Central Africa. V. parasitica reaches as far north as the Everglades in Florida.

Unlike most plants, they do not contain chlorophyll; they are myco-heterotrophs, getting their food through parasitism upon fungi rather than photosynthesis. Their roots are thick and densely clustered, forming a "birds nest" that house their fungus host. Depending on the species, the flowers can be single or held in corymbs of many individual flowers. The stems are usually pallid, with reduced scale-like foliage. The flowers can vary in colour, with white or yellow predominating, and blue and pink also occurring. Like all myco-heterotrophs, they are capable of living in very dark conditions, such as the floor of deep forests, because they no longer derive energy from sunlight.

Voyria is subdivided into two subgenera, Voyria and Leiphaimos. The latter, which contains a majority of the species, is characterized by highly reduced features, lacking both stomates and a continuous vascular cylinder. The lack of chloroplast genes has caused some difficulty in better understanding its relationships within the family. Seeds are dispersed by wind.[3]

Species list

References

  1. ↑ USDA, NRCS (n.d.). "Voyria". The PLANTS Database (plants.usda.gov). Greensboro, North Carolina: National Plant Data Team. Retrieved 6 August 2015.
  2. ↑ "Voyria Aubl. | Plants of the World Online | Kew Science". Plants of the World Online. Retrieved 2020-02-07.
  3. ↑ Albert, Victor A.; Struwe, Lena (October 1997). "Phylogeny and Classification of Voyria (saprophytic Gentianaceae)". Brittonia. 49 (4): 466. doi:10.2307/2807736. ISSN 0007-196X. JSTOR 2807736. S2CID 36789988.
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