Commelinales is an order of flowering plants. It comprises five families: Commelinaceae, Haemodoraceae, Hanguanaceae, Philydraceae, and Pontederiaceae. All the families combined contain over 885 species in about 70 genera; the majority of species are in the Commelinaceae. Plants in the order share a number of synapomorphies that tie them together, such as a lack of mycorrhizal associations and tapetal raphides. Estimates differ as to when the Commelinales evolved, but most suggest an origin and diversification sometime during the mid- to late Cretaceous. Depending on the methods used, studies suggest a range of origin between 123 and 73 million years, with diversification occurring within the group 110 to 66 million years ago. The order's closest relatives are in the Zingiberales, which includes ginger, bananas, cardamom, and others.
The Ericales are a large and diverse order of dicotyledons. Species in this order have considerable commercial importance including for tea, persimmon, blueberry, kiwifruit, Brazil nuts, argan, and azalea. The order includes trees, bushes, lianas, and herbaceous plants. Together with ordinary autophytic plants, the Ericales include chlorophyll-deficient mycoheterotrophic plants and carnivorous plants.
The Aquifoliales are an order of flowering plants, including the Aquifoliaceae (holly) family, and also the Helwingiaceae and the Phyllonomaceae. In 2001, the families Stemonuraceae and Cardiopteridaceae were added to this order. This circumscription of Aquifoliales was recognized by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group when they published the APG II system in 2003. In the Cronquist system, there is no Aquifoliales order: the Aquifoliaceae are placed within the order Celastrales and the others are in other families.
The Buxales are a small order of eudicot flowering plants, recognized by the APG IV system of 2016. The order includes the family Buxaceae; the families Didymelaceae and Haptanthaceae may also be recognized or may be included in the Buxaceae. Many members of the order are evergreen shrubs or trees, although some are herbaceous perennials. They have separate "male" (staminate) and "female" (carpellate) flowers, mostly on the same plant. Some species are of economic importance either for the wood they produce or as ornamental plants.
Impatiens is a genus of more than 1,000 species of flowering plants, widely distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere and the tropics. Together with the genus Hydrocera, Impatiens make up the family Balsaminaceae.
The Limnanthaceae are a small family of annual herbs occurring throughout temperate North America. There are eight species and nineteen taxa currently recognized. Members of this family are prominent in vernal pool communities of California. Some taxa have been domesticated for use as an oil seed crop. Some members are listed as threatened or endangered and have been the focus of disputes over development plans
In the APG IV system (2016) for the classification of flowering plants, the name asterids denotes a clade. Asterids is the largest group of flowering plants, with more than 80,000 species, about a third of the total flowering plant species. Well-known plants in this clade include the common daisy, forget-me-nots, nightshades, the common sunflower, petunias, yacon, morning glory, lettuce, sweet potato, coffee, lavender, lilac, olive, jasmine, honeysuckle, ash tree, teak, snapdragon, sesame, psyllium, garden sage, table herbs such as mint, basil, and rosemary, and rainforest trees such as Brazil nut.
Schisandraceae is a family of flowering plants with 3 known genera and a total of 92 known species. Such a family has been recognized by most taxonomists, at least for the past several decades. Before that, the plants concerned were assigned to family Magnoliaceae and Illiciaceae.
Asparagaceae, known as the asparagus family, is a family of flowering plants, placed in the order Asparagales of the monocots. The family name is based on the edible garden asparagus, Asparagus officinalis. This family includes both common garden plants as well as common houseplants. The garden plants include asparagus, yucca, bluebell, and hosta, and the houseplants include snake plant, corn cane, spider plant, and plumosus fern.
Juncaginaceae is a family of flowering plants, recognized by most taxonomists for the past few decades. It is also known as the arrowgrass family. It includes 3 genera with a total of 34 known species.
Hypoxidaceae is a family of flowering plants, placed in the order Asparagales of the monocots.
Chloranthaceae is a family of flowering plants (angiosperms), the only family in the order Chloranthales. It is not closely related to any other family of flowering plants, and is among the early-diverging lineages in the angiosperms. They are woody or weakly woody plants occurring in Southeast Asia, the Pacific, Madagascar, Central and South America, and the West Indies. The family consists of four extant genera, totalling about 77 known species according to Christenhusz and Byng in 2016. Some species are used in traditional medicine. The type genus is Chloranthus. The fossil record of the family, mostly represented by pollen such as Clavatipollenites, extends back to the dawn of the history of flowering plants in the Early Cretaceous, and has been found on all continents.
Erythroxylaceae is a family of flowering trees and shrubs consisting of 4 genera and 271 species. The four genera are AneulophusBenth., ErythroxylumP.Browne, NectaropetalumEngl., and PinacopodiumExell & Mendonça. The best-known species are the coca plants, including the species Erythroxylum coca, the source of the substance coca.
The Cabombaceae are a family of aquatic, herbaceous flowering plants. A common name for its species is water shield. The family is recognised as distinct in the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group IV system (2016). The family consists of two genera of aquatic plants, Brasenia and Cabomba, totalling six species.
Euptelea is a genus of two species of flowering plants in the monogeneric family Eupteleaceae. The genus is found from Assam east through China to Japan, and consists of shrubs or small trees:
Myrothamnus is a genus of flowering plants, consisting of two species of small xerophytic shrubs, in the southern parts of tropical Africa and in Madagascar. Myrothamnus is recognized as the only genus in the family Myrothamnaceae.
Cyclanthaceae is a family of flowering plants.
Tecophilaeaceae is a family of flowering plants, placed in the order Asparagales of the monocots. It consists of nine genera with a total of 27 species.
Escalloniaceae is a family of flowering plants consisting of about 130 species in seven genera. In the APG II system it is one of eight families in the euasterids II clade (campanulids) that are unplaced as to order. More recent research has provided evidence that two of those families, Eremosynaceae and Tribelaceae, arose from within Escalloniaceae; the Angiosperm Phylogeny Website therefore merges these two families into Escalloniaceae, and also places the family alone in order Escalloniales.
Hydrocera is a genus of flowering plants in the family Balsaminaceae (balsams). It contains a single species, Hydrocera triflora, from Southeast Asia. It is the only other genus in the family Balsaminaceae besides Impatiens.
