The Lamiaceae or Labiatae are a family of flowering plants commonly known as the mint, deadnettle or sage family. Many of the plants are aromatic in all parts and include widely used culinary herbs like basil, mint, rosemary, sage, savory, marjoram, oregano, hyssop, thyme, lavender, and perilla, as well as other medicinal herbs such as catnip, salvia, bee balm, wild dagga, and oriental motherwort. Some species are shrubs, trees, or, rarely, vines. Many members of the family are widely cultivated, not only for their aromatic qualities, but also their ease of cultivation, since they are readily propagated by stem cuttings. Besides those grown for their edible leaves, some are grown for decorative foliage. Others are grown for seed, such as Salvia hispanica (chia), or for their edible tubers, such as Plectranthus edulis, Plectranthus esculentus, Plectranthus rotundifolius, and Stachys affinis. Many are also grown ornamentally, notably coleus, Plectranthus, and many Salvia species and hybrids.
The Malpighiales comprise one of the largest orders of flowering plants, containing about 36 families and more than 16,000 species, about 7.8% of the eudicots. The order is very diverse, containing plants as different as the willow, violet, poinsettia, manchineel, rafflesia and coca plant, and are hard to recognize except with molecular phylogenetic evidence. It is not part of any of the classification systems based only on plant morphology. Molecular clock calculations estimate the origin of stem group Malpighiales at around 100 million years ago (Mya) and the origin of crown group Malpighiales at about 90 Mya.
Rosales is an order of flowering plants. It is sister to a clade consisting of Fagales and Cucurbitales. It contains about 7,700 species, distributed into about 260 genera. Rosales comprise nine families, the type family being the rose family, Rosaceae. The largest of these families are Rosaceae (90/2500) and Urticaceae (54/2600). The order Rosales is divided into three clades that have never been assigned a taxonomic rank. The basal clade consists of the family Rosaceae; another clade consists of four families, including Rhamnaceae; and the third clade consists of the four urticalean families.
The Solanales are an order of flowering plants, included in the asterid group of dicotyledons. Some older sources used the name Polemoniales for this order.
The Saxifragales (saxifrages) are an order of flowering plants (Angiosperms). They are an extremely diverse group of plants which include trees, shrubs, perennial herbs, succulent and aquatic plants. The degree of diversity in terms of vegetative and floral features makes it difficult to define common features that unify the order.
The Actinidiaceae are a small family of flowering plants. The family has three genera and about 360 species and is a member of the order Ericales.
The Scrophulariaceae are a family of flowering plants, commonly known as the figwort family. The plants are annual and perennial herbs, as well as shrubs. Flowers have bilateral (zygomorphic) or rarely radial (actinomorphic) symmetry. The Scrophulariaceae have a cosmopolitan distribution, with the majority found in temperate areas, including tropical mountains. The family name is based on the name of the included genus Scrophularia L.
The Caprifoliaceae or honeysuckle family is a clade of dicotyledonous flowering plants consisting of about 860 species, in 33, to 42 genera, with a nearly cosmopolitan distribution. Centres of diversity are found in eastern North America and eastern Asia, while they are absent in tropical and southern Africa.
Hamamelidaceae, commonly referred to as the witch-hazel family, is a family of flowering plants in the order Saxifragales. The clade consists of shrubs and small trees positioned within the woody clade of the core Saxifragales. An earlier system, the Cronquist system, recognized Hamamelidaceae in the Hamamelidales order.
Winteraceae is a primitive family of tropical trees and shrubs including 93 species in five genera. It is of particular interest because it is such a primitive angiosperm family, distantly related to Magnoliaceae, though it has a much more southern distribution. Plants in this family grow mostly in the southern hemisphere, and have been found in tropical to temperate climate regions of Malesia, Oceania, eastern Australia, New Zealand, Madagascar and the Neotropics, with most of the genera concentrated in Australasia and Malesia. The five genera, Takhtajania, Tasmannia, Drimys, Pseudowintera, and Zygogynum s.l. all have distinct geographic extant populations. Takhtajania includes a single species, T. perrieri, endemic only to Madagascar, Tasmannia has the largest distribution of genera in Winteraceae with species across the Philippines, Borneo, New Guinea, Eastern Australia, and Tasmannia, Drimys is found in the Neotropical realm, from southern Mexico to the subarctic forests of southern South America, Pseudowintera is found only in New Zealand, and Zygogynum has species in New Guinea and New Caledonia.
The Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (APG) is an informal international group of systematic botanists who collaborate to establish a consensus on the taxonomy of flowering plants (angiosperms) that reflects new knowledge about plant relationships discovered through phylogenetic studies.
Asphodelaceae is a family of flowering plants in the order Asparagales. Such a family has been recognized by most taxonomists, but the circumscription has varied widely. In its current circumscription in the APG IV system, it includes about 40 genera and 900 known species. The type genus is Asphodelus.
Peridiscaceae is a family of flowering plants in the order Saxifragales. Four genera comprise this family: Medusandra, Soyauxia, Peridiscus, and Whittonia., with a total of 12 known species. It has a disjunct distribution, with Peridiscus occurring in Venezuela and northern Brazil, Whittonia in Guyana, Medusandra in Cameroon, and Soyauxia in tropical West Africa. Whittonia is possibly extinct, being known from only one specimen collected below Kaieteur Falls in Guyana. In 2006, archeologists attempted to rediscover it, however, it proved unsuccessful.
In plant taxonomy, commelinids is a clade of flowering plants within the monocots, distinguished by having cell walls containing ferulic acid.
Theophrastoideae is a small subfamily of flowering plants in the family Primulaceae. It was formerly recognized as a separate family Theophrastaceae. As previously circumscribed, the family consisted of eight genera and 95 species of trees or shrubs, native to tropical regions of the Americas.
Linderniaceae is a family of flowering plants in the order Lamiales, which consists of about 25 genera and 265 species occurring worldwide. Vandellia micrantha is eaten in Laos, but tastes bitter. Best known are the wishbone flowers Torenia fournieri and Torenia thouarsii, which are used as bedding plants especially in the tropics. Micranthemum is sold as an aquarium plant when it is called 'baby tears'.
Sanango is a genus of flowering plants containing a single species, Sanango racemosum. The genus was originally placed in family Loganiaceae but has since been variously placed in Scrophulariaceae, Gesneriaceae and Buddlejaceae. As of 2016 it is considered to be the sister genus to the family Gesneriaceae as previously defined, and the family was tentatively enlarged to include the genus, pending a revision of the families included in Lamiales. It has been placed as the only genus in the monotypic subfamily Sanangoideae.
Carlemannia is a genus of flowering plants in the family Carlemanniaceae, found in Nepal, the eastern Himalaya, Assam, Tibet, south-central and southeast China, Indochina, and Sumatra. Basal in their lineage, which is now thought to be the Lamiales, they have a chromosome count of 2n=30.
Silvianthus is a genus of flowering plants in the family Carlemanniaceae, found in Bangladesh, the eastern Himalaya, south-central China, and Indochina. Thought to be in the order Lamiales, they have a chromosome count of 2n=38.
