Kohleria
Kohleria is a New World genus of the flowering plant family Gesneriaceae. The plants are herbs or subshrubs with velvety stems and foliage and brightly colored flowers with spots or markings in contrasting colors. Their showy flowers and ease of culture have made them popular with growers of indoor houseplants and several species and cultivars are now in cultivation. The genus was recently revised by Kvist & Skog (1992) and was recognized as having 19 species distributed in Central America and South America. Recent phylogenetic work by Roalson et al. (2005) indicated that the epiphytic genus Capanea is derived from within Kohleria, and the two species of Capanea were subsequently transferred to Kohleria. The genus Pearcea is closely related.
References
- Kvist, L.P. & L.E. Skog. 1992. Revision of Kohleria (Gesneriaceae). Smithsonian Contributions to Botany 79: 1-83.
- Roalson, E.H., J.K. Boggan, L.E., Skog, & E.A. Zimmer. 2005a. Untangling the Gloxinieae (Gesneriaceae). I. Phylogenetic patterns and generic boundaries inferred from nuclear, chloroplast, and morphological cladistic data sets. Taxon 54(2): 389-410.