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.
The Vitaceae are a family of flowering plants, with 14 genera and around 910 known species, including common plants such as grapevines and Virginia creeper. The family name is derived from the genus Vitis.
The Cornales are an order of flowering plants, early diverging among the asterids, containing about 600 species. Plants within the Cornales usually have four-parted flowers, drupaceous fruits, and inferior to half-inferior gynoecia topped with disc-shaped nectaries.
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.
Acanthaceae is a family of dicotyledonous flowering plants containing almost 250 genera and about 2500 species. Most are tropical herbs, shrubs, or twining vines; some are epiphytes. Only a few species are distributed in temperate regions. The four main centres of distribution are Indonesia and Malaysia, Africa, Brazil, and Central America. Representatives of the family can be found in nearly every habitat, including dense or open forests, scrublands, wet fields and valleys, sea coast and marine areas, swamps, and mangrove forests.
Gesneriaceae, the gesneriad family, is a family of flowering plants consisting of about 152 genera and ca. 3,540 species in the tropics and subtropics of the Old World and the New World, with a very small number extending to temperate areas. Many species have colorful and showy flowers and are cultivated as ornamental plants.
Plantaginaceae, the plantain family, is a large, diverse family of flowering plants in the order Lamiales that includes common flowers such as snapdragon and foxglove. It is unrelated to the banana-like fruit also called "plantain." In older classifications, Plantaginaceae was the only family of the order Plantaginales, but numerous phylogenetic studies, summarized by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group, have demonstrated that this taxon should be included within Lamiales.
Lentibulariaceae is a family of carnivorous plants containing three genera: Genlisea, the corkscrew plants; Pinguicula, the butterworts; and Utricularia, the bladderworts.
Paulowniaceae are a family of flowering plants within the Lamiales. They are a monophyletic and monogeneric family of trees with currently 7 confirmed species. They were formerly placed within Scrophulariaceae sensu lato, or as a segregate of the Bignoniaceae.
Orobanchaceae, the broomrapes, is a family of mostly parasitic plants of the order Lamiales, with about 90 genera and more than 2000 species. Many of these genera were formerly included in the family Scrophulariaceae sensu lato. With its new circumscription, Orobanchaceae forms a distinct, monophyletic family. From a phylogenetic perspective, it is defined as the largest crown clade containing Orobanche major and relatives, but neither Paulownia tomentosa nor Phryma leptostachya nor Mazus japonicus.
Phrymaceae, also known as the lopseed family, is a small family of flowering plants in the order Lamiales. It has a nearly cosmopolitan distribution, but is concentrated in two centers of diversity, one in Australia, the other in western North America. Members of this family occur in diverse habitats, including deserts, river banks and mountains.
Rehmannia is a genus of seven species of flowering plants in the order Lamiales and family Orobanchaceae, endemic to China. It has been placed as the only member of the monotypic tribe Rehmannieae, but molecular phylogenetic studies suggest that it forms a clade with Triaenophora. Contrary to the immense majority of the taxa of Orobanchaceae, Rehmannia is not parasitic.
The eudicots, Eudicotidae, or eudicotyledons are a clade of flowering plants mainly characterized by having two seed leaves upon germination. The term derives from Dicotyledons.
The rosids are members of a large clade of flowering plants, containing about 70,000 species, more than a quarter of all angiosperms.
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.
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
Buddlejaceae is a family of flowering plants that is not currently recognized by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group, but as of 2016 it is being used by many botanists as one of several small families that divide the Lamiales. Phylogenetic reconstruction has shown that divisions within the Lamiales are unsatisfactory, and a major revision is anticipated that will greatly alter the circumscriptions of the larger families and will temporarily bring widespread ambiguity. At present, there is no widely accepted phylogenetic classification of the Lamiales, and for the sake of clarity, some smaller families are widely used, including Buddlejaceae. The genera included in Buddlejaceae are assigned to Scrophulariaceae when Buddlejaceae is not recognized.
Lindenbergia is a genus of herbaceous plants in the order Lamiales and in the broomrape family Orobanchaceae. It is one of the few genera of the family which are not parasitic. It contains about 15 species found from northeast Africa across Asia to the Philippines, and is most abundant in India.
