Gerrardina

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Gerrardina
Gerrardina foliosa 1.jpg
Gerrardina foliosa
Scientific classification Red Pencil Icon.png
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Clade: Rosids
Order: Huerteales
Family: Gerrardinaceae
M.H.Alford [1]
Genus: Gerrardina
Oliv.
Species

Gerrardina eylesiana
Gerrardina foliosa

Gerrardina is a genus of two species of trees, shrubs, and scrambling shrubs found in southeastern Africa. Until recently, the genus was placed in the polyphyletic family Flacourtiaceae, but it was abnormal there due to its apical placentation, small embryos, and mucilaginous foliar epidermis. Analyses of DNA data indicated that the genus did not fit in any known plant family and not clearly in any then-recognized order, and a new family, Gerrardinaceae, was thus created for it. [2] Later analyses of additional DNA data [3] and data from wood anatomy [4] indicated that the family should be placed in the order Huerteales.

Related Research Articles

Brassicales Order of dicot flowering plants

The Brassicales are an order of flowering plants, belonging to the eurosids II group of dicotyledons under the APG II system. One character common to many members of the order is the production of glucosinolate compounds. Most systems of classification have included this order, although sometimes under the name Capparales.

Malvales Order of flowering plants

The Malvales are an order of flowering plants. As circumscribed by APG II-system, the order includes about 6000 species within 9 families. The order is placed in the eurosids II, which are part of the eudicots.

Rosidae

Under the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (ICN), Rosidae is a botanical name at the rank of subclass. Circumscription of the subclass will vary with the taxonomic system being used; the only requirement being that it includes the family Rosaceae.

Celastrales Order of flowering plants, mostly from tropics and subtropics

The Celastrales are an order of flowering plants found throughout the tropics and subtropics, with only a few species extending far into the temperate regions. The 1200 to 1350 species are in about 100 genera. All but seven of these genera are in the large family Celastraceae. Until recently, the composition of the order and its division into families varied greatly from one author to another.

Oxalidales Order of eudicot flowering plants

Oxalidales is an order of flowering plants, included within the rosid subgroup of eudicots. Compound leaves are common in Oxalidales and the majority of the species in this order have five or six sepals and petals. The following families are typically placed here:

Piperaceae Family of flowering plants in the order Piperales

The Piperaceae, also known as the pepper family, are a large family of flowering plants. The group contains roughly 3,600 currently accepted species in 5 genera. The vast majority of species can be found within the two main genera: Piper and Peperomia.

Violales Order of eudicot flowering plants

Violales is a botanical name of an order of flowering plants and takes its name from the included family Violaceae; it was proposed by Lindley (1853). The name has been used in several systems, although some systems used the name Parietales for similar groupings. In the 1981 version of the influential Cronquist system, order Violales was placed in subclass Dilleniidae with a circumscription consisting of the families listed below. Some classifications such as that of Dahlgren placed the Violales in the superorder Violiflorae.

Flacourtiaceae Family of flowering plants

The Flacourtiaceae is a defunct family of flowering plants whose former members have been scattered to various families, mostly to the Achariaceae and Salicaceae. It was so vaguely defined that hardly anything seemed out of place there and it became a dumping ground for odd and anomalous genera, gradually making the family even more heterogeneous. In 1975, Hermann Sleumer noted that "Flacourtiaceae as a family is a fiction; only the tribes are homogeneous."

<i>Moringa</i> Genus of flowering plants

Moringa, native to parts of Africa and Asia, is the sole genus in the flowering plant family Moringaceae. The name is derived from murungai, the Tamil word for drumstick, and the plant is commonly referred to as the drumstick tree. It contains 13 species from tropical and subtropical climates that range in size from tiny herbs to massive trees. Moringa species grow quickly in many types of environments.

Crypteroniaceae Family of flowering plants

The Crypteroniaceae are a family of flowering trees and shrubs. The family includes 13 species in three genera, native to Indomalaya.

Pandaceae Family of flowering plants

The family Pandaceae consists of three genera that were formerly recognized in the Euphorbiaceae. Those are:

Rosids Large clade of flowering plants

The rosids are members of a large clade of flowering plants, containing about 70,000 species, more than a quarter of all angiosperms.

Chrysobalanaceae Family of flowering plants

Chrysobalanaceae is a family of flowering plants, consisting of trees and shrubs in 27 genera and about 700 species of pantropical distribution with a centre of diversity in the Amazon. Some of the species contain silica in their bodies for rigidity and so the mesophyll often has sclerenchymatous idioblasts. The widespread species Chrysobalanus icaco produces a plum-like fruit and the plant is commonly known as the coco plum.

Dichapetalaceae Family of flowering plants

Dichapetalaceae is a family of flowering plants, consisting of 3 genera and about 170 species. Members of this family are trees, shrubs or lianas found in tropical and subtropical regions of the world.

Dipentodon is a genus of flowering plants in the family Dipentodontaceae. Its only species, Dipentodon sinicus, is a small, deciduous tree native to southern China, northern Myanmar, and northern India. It has been little studied and until recently its affinities remained obscure.

Huerteales Order of flowering plants

Huerteales is the botanical name for an order of flowering plants. It is one of the 17 orders that make up the large eudicot group known as the rosids in the APG III system of plant classification. Within the rosids, it is one of the orders in Malvidae, a group formerly known as eurosids II and now known informally as the malvids. This is true whether Malvidae is circumscribed broadly to include eight orders as in APG III, or more narrowly to include only four orders. Huerteales consists of four small families, Petenaeaceae, Gerrardinaceae, Tapisciaceae, and Dipentodontaceae.

Cleomaceae Family of flowering plants

The Cleomaceae are a small family of flowering plants in the order Brassicales, comprising about 300 species in 10 genera, or about 150 species in 17 genera. These genera were previously included in the family Capparaceae, but were raised to a distinct family when DNA evidence suggested the genera included in it are more closely related to the Brassicaceae than they are to the Capparaceae. The APG II system allows for Cleomaceae to be included in Brassicaceae.

When the APG II system of plant classification was published in April 2003, fifteen genera and three families were placed incertae sedis in the angiosperms, and were listed in a section of the appendix entitled "Taxa of uncertain position".

The APG III system of flowering plant classification is the third version of a modern, mostly molecular-based, system of plant taxonomy being developed by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (APG). Published in 2009, it was superseded in 2016 by a further revision, the APG IV system.

Petenaea cordata was first described in Elaeocarpaceae and later placed in Tiliaceae, but most authors have been uncertain about its familial affinities. It was considered a taxon incertae sedis in the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group classification. Molecular analyses based on a recent collection from Guatemala indicate a distant, weakly supported sister-group relationship to the African genus Gerrardina. As no obvious synapomorphies exist for Gerrardina and Petenaea, the new monogeneric family Petenaeaceae was proposed. The polymorphic order Huerteales now comprises four small families: Dipentodontaceae, Gerrardinaceae, Petenaeaceae and Tapisciaceae. Petenaea cordata is the only species in the genus Petenaea.

References

  1. Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (2009). "An update of the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group classification for the orders and families of flowering plants: APG III". Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society. 161 (2): 105–121. doi: 10.1111/j.1095-8339.2009.00996.x .
  2. Alford, M. H. 2006. Gerrardinaceae: a new family of African flowering plants unresolved among Brassicales, Huerteales, Malvales, and Sapindales. Taxon 55: 959-964.
  3. Worberg, A., M. H. Alford, D. Quandt, and T. Borsch. 2009. Huerteales sister to Brassicales plus Malvales, and newly circumscribed to include Dipentodon, Gerrardina, Huertea, Perrottetia, and Tapiscia. Taxon 58(2):468-478.
  4. Christenhusz, M. J. M., M. F. Fay, J. J. Clarkson, P. Gasson, J. Morales Can, J. B. Jiménez Barrios, & M. W. Chase. 2010. Petenaeaceae, a new angiosperm family in Huerteales with a distant relationship to Gerrardina (Gerrardinaceae). Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 164: 16–25.