Welcome to Burmanniaceae.org. This website is dedicated to our research on the fascinating members of the plant family Burmanniaceae: tiny and extremely rare beauties of the tropical rain-forests. Our mission is to discover and understand these poorly known plants and learn more about their evolutionary relationships.

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Vincent Merckx

is a Ph.D. student at the Laboratory of Plant Systematics and lives in Leuven. Fascinated by science and plants, he started a biology study at the K.U.Leuven in 1999 and graduated in 2003 with a Master thesis on the phylogeny of the Nartheciaceae. This work was supervised by Peter Schols. For his current Ph.D. research on the Burmanniaceae he holds a grant from the Institute for the Promotion of Innovation through Science and Technology in Flanders (IWT Vlaanderen, no. 31536). When the lab is closed you can find him behind the turntables, mixing Marvin Gaye with Daft Punk, or planning another surftrip in the search for the perfect wave. As a former national champion cross-country, he is still fond of running but his current level can best be assigned as moderate.

Peter Schols

is a post-doc at the Laboratory of Plant Systematics. At the age of six, he started his career in biology by breeding frogs and collecting aquatic plants. While still interested in aquatic plants, the focus of his research is now on Burmanniaceae. Peter is especially interested in molecular evolution, phylogenetic inference and bioinformatics. In the evenings, he enjoys eating out, going to the movies or writing software to facilitate scientific research, such as iMap and Carnoy. Peter is supported by a postdoc grant from the K.U.Leuven.

Paul Maas

Paul Maas, who initially decided to study chemistry, started his study in biology in 1957. This was the beginning of an impressive career in systematic botany. In 1964 he went to Suriname to conduct an inventory of the Bakhuis Mountains, his first encounter with the rich neotropical flora. Space is too limited to enumerate what followed. Just to give an impression: he travelled to 20 countries in tropical America, he made almost 10.000 collections (and counting...!), he described about 250 new taxa and he is the author or co-author of more than 130 books and publications. For most serious botanists, a trip to the neotropics without 'Neotropical Plant Families' by Maas & Westra is difficult to imagine. Paul's enthusiasm for collecting plants is well known: apart from the 'field' interesting plants were collected on airstrips, during coffee-breaks and on family holidays. Only soccer can rival his interest for botany, sometimes literally: when Paul was in South America in 1988 he did manage to find a TV in the jungle to see the Netherlands winning the European Championships...

Hiltje Maas-van de Kamer

It is difficult to speak about Paul's great explorations without mentioning his wife and 'partner in crime' Hiltje. Apart from raising kids and managing a household she studied biology at the Utrecht university from 1961 to 1982. Moreover she accompanied Paul on more than 10 expeditions to South America and is the author or co-author of more than 30 books and publications. She is an expert in saprophytic plants (Burmanniaceae, Gentianaceae and Triuridaceae) but her interests reach out to Zingiberaceae, Costaceae, Haemodoraceae and Cannaceae.

Some history

In 1753 Linnaeus described the genus Burmannia, with two distinct species: Burmannia disticha from Sri Lanka and Burmannia biflora from the USA. He named this new genus after Prof. J. Burman, a medical doctor and professor at the Botanical Garden of Amsterdam. More than 70 years later, Blume united Burmannia with the genera Gymnosiphon and Gonyanthes (now Burmannia) in a new family, Burmanniaceae.

Since Linnaeus' description expeditions all over the world brought new and sometimes very strange species from the dark hearts of the tropical and sub-tropical rain-forests. As a result Burmannianiceae now comprise more than 130 different species across 13 genera and new discoveries are made almost every year.

Endangered treasures

As members of the endangered tropical rain-forests of the world, extinction is a constant threat for most Burmanniaceae. Protection of their natural habitats is essential for their conservation: Due to their complex and little known association with mycorrhizal fungi it is impossible to grow the plants in greenhouses. The continuous exploitation of tropical forests already made victims. Thismia lauriana, to give just one example, was found in Borneo in 1995 between the roots of large tree. Only two hours after its discovery, the tree and the surrounding forest was lodged and another species was lost forever...

New techniques reveal new affinities

With respect to systematic relationships, Burmanniaceae were traditionally placed within the orders Orchidales or Liliales. In recent molecular analyses, however, Burmanniaceae are sister to the Dioscoreaceae (the yam family). Together with the Nartheciaceae these three families now form the order Dioscoreales.

Support

Vincent Merckx holds a personal grant for this project from the Institute for the Promotion of Innovation through Science and Technology in Flanders (IWT Vlaanderen, no. 31536). Peter Schols is a postdoctoral fellow of the K.U.Leuven (PDM/04/136).