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.
Nymphaeaceae is a family of flowering plants, commonly called water lilies. They live as rhizomatous aquatic herbs in temperate and tropical climates around the world. The family contains five genera with about 70 known species. Water lilies are rooted in soil in bodies of water, with leaves and flowers floating on or emergent from the surface. Leaves are round, with a radial notch in Nymphaea and Nuphar, but fully circular in Victoria and Euryale.
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 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.
Ranunculales is an order of flowering plants. Of necessity it contains the family Ranunculaceae, the buttercup family, because the name of the order is based on the name of a genus in that family. Ranunculales belongs to a paraphyletic group known as the basal eudicots. It is the most basal clade in this group; in other words, it is sister to the remaining eudicots. Widely known members include poppies, barberries, hellebores, and buttercups.
The Primulaceae, commonly known as the primrose family, are a family of herbaceous and woody flowering plants including some favourite garden plants and wildflowers. Most are perennial though some species, such as scarlet pimpernel, are annuals.
Cunoniaceae is a family of 27 genera and about 335 species of woody plants in the order Oxalidales, mostly found in the tropical and wet temperate regions of the Southern Hemisphere. The greatest diversity of genera are in Australia and Tasmania, New Guinea, and New Caledonia. The family is also present in Central America, South America, the Caribbean, Malesia, the islands of the South Pacific, Madagascar and surrounding islands. the family is absent from mainland Asia except from Peninsular Malaysia, and almost absent from mainland Africa apart from two species from Southern Africa. Several of the genera have remarkable disjunct ranges, found on more than one continent, e.g. Cunonia, EucryphiaWeinmannia.
Incertae sedis or problematica is a term used for a taxonomic group where its broader relationships are unknown or undefined. Alternatively, such groups are frequently referred to as "enigmatic taxa". In the system of open nomenclature, uncertainty at specific taxonomic levels is indicated by incertae familiae, incerti subordinis, incerti ordinis and similar terms.
Ochnaceae is a family of flowering plants in the order Malpighiales. In the APG III system of classification of flowering plants, Ochnaceae is defined broadly, to include about 550 species, and encompasses what some taxonomists have treated as the separate families Medusagynaceae and Quiinaceae. In a phylogenetic study that was published in 2014, Ochnaceae was recognized in the broad sense, but two works published after APG III have accepted the small families Medusagynaceae and Quiinaceae. These have not been accepted by APG IV (2016).
Diapensiaceae is a small family of flowering plants, which includes 15 species in 6 genera. The genera include Berneuxia Decne., Diapensia L., Galax Sims, Pyxidanthera Michx., Shortia Torr. & A.Gray, and Schizocodon Siebold & Zucc.. Members of this family have little economic importance; however, some members are cultivated by florists.
Sabiaceae is a family of flowering plants that were placed in the order Proteales according to the APG IV system. It comprises three genera, Meliosma, Ophiocaryon and Sabia, with 66 known species, native to tropical to warm temperate regions of southern Asia and the Americas. The family has also been called Meliosmaceae Endl., 1841, nom. rej.
Trochodendraceae is the only family of flowering plants in the order Trochodendrales. It comprises two extant genera, each with a single species along with up to five additional extinct genera and a number of extinct species. The living species are native to south east Asia. The two living species both have secondary xylem without vessel elements, which is quite rare in angiosperms. As the vessel-free wood suggests primitiveness, these two species have attracted much taxonomic attention.
Chloranthaceae is a family of flowering plants (angiosperms), the only family in the order Chloranthales. It is not closely related to any other family of flowering plants, and is among the early-diverging lineages in the angiosperms. They are woody or weakly woody plants occurring in Southeast Asia, the Pacific, Madagascar, Central and South America, and the West Indies. The family consists of four extant genera, totalling about 77 known species according to Christenhusz and Byng in 2016. Some species are used in traditional medicine. The type genus is Chloranthus. The fossil record of the family, mostly represented by pollen such as Clavatipollenites, extends back to the dawn of the history of flowering plants in the Early Cretaceous, and has been found on all continents.
Haptanthus is a monotypic genus containing the sole species Haptanthus hazlettii, a shrub or small tree known only from the locality of Matarras in the Arizona Municipality in Honduras. Its flowers are unique among the flowering plants. A single "female" (carpellate) flower has two branches on either side which carry "male" (staminate) flowers. The flowers are very simple, lacking obvious sepals or petals. The family placement of the genus has been uncertain, but based on molecular phylogenetic research, it is included in the family Buxaceae as of September 2014. Very few individuals have ever been found and its habitat is threatened by logging.
Pentaphylax euryoides is a species of flowering plant in the Pentaphylacaceae family. It is the sole species in genus Pentaphylax. It is a shrub or small tree native to southern China, Vietnam, Laos, Peninsular Malaysia, and northern Sumatra. In China, it is found in Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, and Yunnan provinces, and in southern parts of Fujian, Hunan, and Jiangxi.
Lepidobotryaceae is a family of plants in the order Celastrales. It contains only two species: Lepidobotrys staudtii and Ruptiliocarpon caracolito.
Mesangiospermae is a clade of flowering plants (angiosperms), informally called "mesangiosperms". They are one of two main groups of angiosperms. It is a name created under the rules of the PhyloCode system of phylogenetic nomenclature. There are about 350,000 species of mesangiosperms. The mesangiosperms contain about 99.95% of the flowering plants, assuming that there are about 175 species not in this group and about 350,000 that are. While such a clade with a similar circumscription exists in the APG III system, it was not given a name.
In phylogenetic nomenclature, the Pentapetalae are a large group of eudicots that were informally referred to as the "core eudicots" in some papers on angiosperm phylogenetics. They comprise an extremely large and diverse group accounting for about 65% of the species richness of the angiosperms, with wide variability in habit, morphology, chemistry, geographic distribution, and other attributes. Classical systematics, based solely on morphological information, was not able to recognize this group. In fact, the circumscription of the Pentapetalae as a clade is based on strong evidence obtained from DNA molecular analysis data.
Else Marie Friis is a Danish botanist and paleontologist. She is Professor Emerita in the Department of Geoscience at Aarhus University. Her work has been fundamental in the phylogenetic analysis of angiosperms, with widespread application to reproductive biology.
In botany, floral morphology is the study of the diversity of forms and structures presented by the flower, which, by definition, is a branch of limited growth that bears the modified leaves responsible for reproduction and protection of the gametes, called floral pieces.
