Glossopetalon | |
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Glossopetalon spinescens | |
Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | Plantae |
Clade: | Tracheophytes |
Clade: | Angiosperms |
Clade: | Eudicots |
Clade: | Rosids |
Order: | Crossosomatales |
Family: | Crossosomataceae |
Genus: | Glossopetalon Gray |
Species | |
2 or 4, see text |
Glossopetalon is a small genus of shrubs in the plant family Crossosomataceae. These plants are sometimes called greasebushes. They are native to Mexico and the western United States, [1] where they can be found on dry mountain slopes.
These are usually small shrubs, although Glossopetalon spinescens can reach up to three metres in favoured locations. They have thorny, tangling branches and white flowers with petals that are easily shed, giving them an untidy appearance. [1] [2] G. pungens is not thorny, and is a vertically prostrate subshrub which is usually found as a small tangled mat of stems hugging sheer cliffs. [3]
Glossopetalon was described by the American botanist Asa Gray in 1853. Gray first placed his new genus in the Celastraceae family, but twenty years later thought it was most closely related to Staphylea , then in the Sapindaceae, and a few authors accepted this classification at the time (1880). [4] Within two decades (1897), however, this genus was placed back in the Celastraceae again, where it remained until 1978. It was placed in Crossosomataceae by Thorne and Scogin at that time, as the third genus known in this small family. [3] [4]
Edward Lee Greene noticed that the generic name Glossopetalon was extremely similar to the name Glossopetalum, which had been coined by Johann Christian Daniel von Schreber in 1789 for another genus also placed in the Celastraceae at the time ( Goupia ), and considered Glossopetalon to be a homonym of that name, so in 1893 Greene officially renamed the genus Forsellesia. [3] It continues to be the subject of a dispute about whether its proper name is Forsellesia or Glossopetalon. [5]
The type species is G. spinescens. [6]
In 1942 eight species were recognised. [6] Of those, G. meionandrum, G. nevadense, G. planitierum and G. stipuliferum were all placed in synonymy with G. spinescens in 1988. [4] Thus, the remaining species included in 2015 were: [1]
In 2021 a phylogenetic study found that G. clokeyi and G. texense were not distinct as species, and belonged within G. spinescens as well. [7]
Agavoideae is a subfamily of monocot flowering plants in the family Asparagaceae, order Asparagales. It has previously been treated as a separate family, Agavaceae. The group includes many well-known desert and dry-zone types, such as the agaves and yuccas. About 640 species are placed in around 23 genera; they are widespread in the tropical, subtropical, and warm temperate regions of the world.
The Elaeagnaceae are a plant family, the oleaster family, of the order Rosales comprising small trees and shrubs, native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere, south into tropical Asia and Australia. The family has about 60 species in three genera.
The Salicaceae is the willow family of flowering plants. The traditional family included the willows, poplar, aspen, and cottonwoods. Genetic studies summarized by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (APG) have greatly expanded the circumscription of the family to contain 56 genera and about 1220 species, including the Scyphostegiaceae and many of the former Flacourtiaceae.
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.
Punica is a small genus of fruit-bearing deciduous shrubs or small trees in the flowering plant family Lythraceae. The better known species is the pomegranate. The other species, the Socotra pomegranate, is endemic to the island of Socotra. It differs in having pink flowers and smaller, less sweet fruit.
Brodiaea, also known by the common name cluster-lilies, is a monocot genus of flowering plants.
Artemisia is a large, diverse genus of plants belonging to the daisy family Asteraceae, with between 200 and 400 species. Common names for various species in the genus include mugwort, wormwood, and sagebrush.
The blue spruce, also commonly known as green spruce, Colorado spruce, or Colorado blue spruce, is a species of spruce tree. It is native to North America, and is found in USDA growing zones 1 through 7. It is found naturally in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. It has been widely introduced elsewhere and is used as an ornamental tree in many places far beyond its native range. The blue spruce has blue-green colored needles and is a coniferous tree.
Discaria toumatou, commonly called matagouri, tūmatakuru or wild Irishman, is a tangle-branched thorny plant endemic to New Zealand.
Crossosomataceae is a small plant family, consisting of four genera of shrubs found only in the dry parts of the American southwest and Mexico. This family has included up to ten species in the past, although as of 2021 six species are still recognised. Crossosoma are shrub-like plants which can vary from being 50 cm to 5 meters tall, with small alternating leaves that surround the stem, or leaves clustered in small spurts (fascicles). Apacheria, however, has opposite leaves. Crossosoma has usually white flowers that are generally bisexual and have 5 petals attached to a nectary disk, but in Velascoa the flowers are campanulate and have an extremely reduced nectary disk.
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.
Artemisia spinescens is a North American species of sagebrush in the sunflower family, known by the common name budsage.
Glossopetalon spinescens, syn. Forsellesia spinescens, is a species of flowering shrub in the family Crossosomataceae known by the common names greasebush, spiny greasebush, Nevada greasewood and spring greasebush.
Pottingeria is a genus consisting of a single species, Pottingeria acuminata, a small tree or large shrub native to mountainous areas of southeast Asia.
The Maleae are the apple tribe in the rose family, Rosaceae. The group includes a number of plants bearing commercially important fruits, such as apples and pears, while others are cultivated as ornamentals. Older taxonomies separated some of this group as tribe Crataegeae, as the Cydonia group, or some genera were placed in family Quillajaceae.
Phaulothamnus is a genus of plants formerly included in the family Phytolaccaceae but now considered a part of the Achatocarpaceae.
Chenopodium spinescens is a species of plant in the family Amaranthaceae and is endemic to all mainland states and territories of Australia where it is known as Rhagodia spinescens.
Scyphostegia borneensis is a species of shrub or small tree endemic to Borneo. This unusual plant is the only species in the genus Scyphostegia. In many taxonomic classifications the genus was placed in its own family, the Scyphostegiaceae. Analyses of DNA data indicated that the species is related to a group of species of the now defunct Flacourtiaceae, a group which is now placed in a broadly circumscribed Salicaceae.
Tetrathylacium is a genus of two species of shrubs and small trees in the family Salicaceae native to the southern Central America and northern South America. Previously it was treated in the family Flacourtiaceae but was moved along with its close relatives to the Salicaceae based on analyses of DNA data. Tetrathylacium is rather unique in the Samydaceae in having tightly arranged panicles of spikes, four sepals and stamens, and non-arillate seeds. The stems are often inhabited by ants, and T. macrophyllum is suspected to have locust pollination.
Oreocarya is a genus of flowering plants in the family Boraginaceae. There are about 63 species and its native range extends from western and central Canada, through western United States to north Mexico. It is part of subtribe of Amsinckiinae.