Murdannia is a genus of annual or perennial monocotyledonous flowering plants in the family Commelinaceae.

They are most easily distinguished from other genera in the family by their three-lobed or spear-shaped antherodes (i.e. non-functional anthers).

[3] Murdannia are found in tropical regions across the globe with extensions into warm temperate areas.

[5][6][7] The genus is named in honor of Murdan Ali, a plant collector who worked for John Forbes Royle and maintained the herbarium at Saharanpur, India.

[6][8] He was a munshi who took a keen interest in natural history and under the training of Falconer, Royle and Edgeworth had become a proficient botanist who compiled a vernacular flora of northern India and the Himalayas which was however never published.