Flora of Australia: Alismatales to Arales

Volume 39 of the Flora of Australia describes 17 families of monocots in 76 genera and 256 species. Most of the families are aquatic, and include the sea-grasses, pond weeds, and some major agricultural weed species. Four families are entirely or mostly terrestrial.

The aquatic families are all small in number of species, and two, Juncaginaceae and Posidoniaceae, have their greatest diversity in Australia. Lemnaceae contains the world’s smallest and most reduced fl…