Najas

Najas
Najas marina
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Monocots
Order: Alismatales
Family: Hydrocharitaceae
Subfamily: Hydrilloideae
Genus: Najas
L.
Synonyms
  • Fluvialis Ség
  • Caulinia Willd.
  • Ittnera C.C.Gmel.

Najas, the water-nymphs or naiads, is a genus of aquatic plants. It is cosmopolitan in distribution, first described for modern science by Linnaeus in 1753. Until 1997, it was rarely placed in the Hydrocharitaceae, and was often taken as constituting (by itself) the family Najadaceae.

The APG II system, of 2003 (unchanged from the APG system, of 1998), places the genus in family Hydrocharitaceae, in the order Alismatales of the monocots.

An infrageneric classification of two sections is proposed: Section Americanae and sect. Caulinia.

Species