| Calceolaria gossypina | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Clade: | Angiosperms |
| Clade: | Eudicots |
| Clade: | Asterids |
| Order: | Lamiales |
| Family: | Calceolariaceae |
| Genus: | Calceolaria |
| Species: | C. gossypina |
| Binomial name | |
| Calceolaria gossypina Benth. | |
Calceolaria gossypina is a species of plant in the Calceolariaceae family. It is endemic to Ecuador.
Plants are mainly multicellular, predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, plants were treated as one of two kingdoms including all living things that were not animals, and all algae and fungi were treated as plants. However, all current definitions of Plantae exclude the fungi and some algae, as well as the prokaryotes. By one definition, plants form the clade Viridiplantae, a group that includes the flowering plants, conifers and other gymnosperms, ferns and their allies, hornworts, liverworts, mosses and the green algae, but excludes the red and brown algae.
Calceolariaceae is a family of flowering plants in the order Lamiales that has been recently segregated from Scrophulariaceae. The family includes three genera, Calceolaria, Porodittia, and Jovellana, but analysis suggests that the monotypic Porodittia should be placed within Calceolaria. Recent molecular phylogenies that included Calceolaria have shown not only that this genus does not belong in Scrophulariaceae but also that it is the sister clade to the majority of the other families of the Lamiales. Morphological and chemical characters also support the separation of Calceolariaceae from Scrophulariaceae and other Lamiales. Some recent studies have supported a sister-group relationship between Calceolariaceae and Gesneriaceae. Given this close relationship, some authors opt to merge this family into Gesneriaceae as subfamily Calceolarioideae
Endemism is the ecological state of a species being unique to a defined geographic location, such as an island, nation, country or other defined zone, or habitat type; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsewhere. The extreme opposite of endemism is cosmopolitan distribution. An alternative term for a species that is endemic is precinctive, which applies to species that are restricted to a defined geographical area.
