A Little-known Family of Resurrection Plants

Every once in awhile I hear about a plant family or group of plants that are so remarkable yet so little known that it makes me feel almost incredulous that more people dont know about them. What a tragedy of awareness.

Velloziaceae is one of those families. It is hard to overstate how infinitely cool this family is, not to mention how species-rich and diverse members of this family are in the tropics, esp in Brazil.

For being monocots that otherwise look somewhat uncharismatic when not in flower, their flowers are remarkably large & vividly colorful, having adapted to a diversity of pollination systems.

But members of this family hold a special secret - many of them are "dessication tolerant". That is, they are "resurrection plants". Though this is common to see in ferns, there are not many angiosperms that can claim this title.

There are over 200 species in this family in Brazil, mostly in the genera Vellozia & Barbacenia. Everywhere we went, especially in the rocky, thin-soiled "Canpos Rupestres" habitat, we saw a member of Velloziaceae. Being in the order Pandanales, they are distantly related to "Screw Pines", which are another bizarre plant that few Northern Hemisphere residents have heard of in the genus Pandanus.

The flowers of Vellozia are often large & showy, and the fruits (ala ovaries) are often covered in sticky, stipitate glands. In the pic of leaf rosettes, you can see the vegetation which appears totally dessicated & vrispy but is most assuredly NOT dead.

Species pictured here : Vellozia variabilis.,V. hirsuta, V. declinans, V. hirsuta, V. variabilis