The Commelineae can be separated morphologically from its sister tribe, the Tradescantieae, through a number of technical characters. These include having six subsidiary cells with the terminal pair always being smaller than the second lateral pair, pollen with a spiny exine and a perforate tectum, primarily zygomorphic flowers, non-moniliform filament hairs, no silica in the epidermis, and small chromosomes.[1]Molecular phylogenetics generally supports the separation of the two tribes.[2]
References
^Faden, Robert B. (1998), "Commelinaceae", in Kubitzki, Klaus (ed.), The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants, vol. IV, Berlin: Springer, pp. 109–128
^Evans, Timothy M.; Systsma, Kenneth J.; Faden, Robert, B.; Givnish, Thomas J. (2003), "Phylogenetic Relationships in the Commelinaceae: A Cladistic Analysis of rbcL Sequences and Morphology", Systematic Botany, 28 (2): 270–292, doi:10.1043/0363-6445-28.2.270{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
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