The monocotyledonous family Triuridaceae includes seven genera of tropical and subtropical achlorophyllous, saprophytic herbs which live symbiotically with mycorrhizal fungi. Traditionally the family is divided into two tribes, Sciaphileae and Triurideae. Sciaphileae is characterized by unappendaged tepals and a basal style and comprises the genera Sciaphila, Soridium, Hyalisma and Seychellaria, and Triurideae is characterized be appendaged tepals and a lateral style and comprises Triuris, Peltophyllum, and Triuridopsis. Even though flower characters are highly variable, the morphology of the perianth, androecium and gynoecium and various embryological characters are commonly used to segregate genera and species within this family . Fossil flowers assignable to Triuridaceae are one of the most abundant elements of the Raritan Formation flora (Upper Cretaceous, ~90 MYBP) of New Jersey. When added to higher level morphological phylogenetic analyses of angiosperms and monocots, the fossils are found to nest within the modern Triuridaceae. The fossils include four distinctive forms, which are best treated as three genera and four species on the basis of generic concepts in the extant family. The fossil flowers vary in tepal, stamen and pollen grain morphology, and in presence of pistillodes. The relationships among the fossil taxa and the modern genera were explored through a preliminary phylogenetic analysis (48 morphological and anatomical characters, 3 fossil and 20 extant species of Triuridaceae, plus the outgroup Petrosavia) of Triuridaceae. These analyses place the fossils together in a clade that is the sister group of a clade composed of the all the members of the tribe Triurideae and all the American members of the tribe Sciaphileae . Based on these analyses, Sciaphila seems to be polyphyletic or paraphyletic. Further more detailed analyses are being pursued to confirm this placement based on more complete samples of modern species.

Key words: cretaceous flowers, Monocotyledoneae, phylogenetic analysis, Triuridaceae