The Cistaceae are a small family of plants (rock-rose or rock rose family) known for their beautiful

shrubs A shrub (often also called a bush) is a small-to-medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees ...

, which are profusely covered by

flower A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants (plants of the division Angiospermae). The biological function of a flower is to facilitate reproduction, usually by providing a mechani ...

s at the time of

blossom In botany, blossoms are the flowers of stone fruit trees (genus ''Prunus'') and of some other plants with a similar appearance that flower profusely for a period of time in spring. Colloquially, flowers of orange are referred to as such as wel ...

. This family consists of about 170(-200) species in nine genera that are not very distinct, distributed primarily in the temperate areas of

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

and the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the e ...

basin, but also found in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

; a limited number of species are found in

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...

. Most Cistaceae are

subshrub A subshrub (Latin ''suffrutex'') or dwarf shrub is a short shrub, and is a woody plant. Prostrate shrub is a related term. "Subshrub" is often used interchangeably with "bush".Jackson, Benjamin, Daydon; A Glossary of Botanic Terms with their Der ...

s and low

shrub A shrub (often also called a bush) is a small-to-medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees ...

s, and some are

herbaceous Herbaceous plants are vascular plants that have no persistent woody stems above ground. This broad category of plants includes many perennials, and nearly all annuals and biennials. Definitions of "herb" and "herbaceous" The fourth edition of t ...

. They prefer dry and sunny habitats. Cistaceae grow well on poor

soil Soil, also commonly referred to as earth or dirt, is a mixture of organic matter, minerals, gases, liquids, and organisms that together support life. Some scientific definitions distinguish ''dirt'' from ''soil'' by restricting the former te ...

s, and many of them are cultivated in

garden A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the cultivation, display, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The single feature identifying even the wildest wild garden is ''control''. The garden can incorporate both ...

s. They often have showy yellow, pink or white flowers, which are generally short-lived. The flowers are bisexual, regular, solitary or borne in cymes; they usually have five, sometimes three, petals (''

Lechea ''Lechea'' (pinweed) is a genus in the family Cistaceae of the order Malvales.USDA, NRCS. 2014. The PLANTS Database (http://plants.usda.gov, 1 December 2014). National Plant Data Team, Greensboro, NC 27401-4901 USA. The genus ''Lechea'' is base ...

''). The petals are free, usually crumpled in the bud, and sometimes in the open flower (e. g. ''

Cistus incanus ''Cistus'' (from the Greek ''kistos'') is a genus of flowering plants in the rockrose family Cistaceae, containing about 20 species (Ellul ''et al.'' 2002). They are perennial shrubs found on dry or rocky soils throughout the Mediterranean regio ...

''). It has five sepals, the inner three of which are distinctly wider, and the outer two are narrow and sometimes regarded as bracteoles. The

sepal A sepal () is a part of the flower of angiosperms (flowering plants). Usually green, sepals typically function as protection for the flower in bud, and often as support for the petals when in bloom., p. 106 The term ''sepalum'' was coined b ...

arrangement is a characteristic property of the family. The

stamen The stamen (plural ''stamina'' or ''stamens'') is the pollen-producing reproductive organ of a flower. Collectively the stamens form the androecium., p. 10 Morphology and terminology A stamen typically consists of a stalk called the filame ...

s are numerous, of variable length, and sit on a disc; filaments are free. The

ovary The ovary is an organ in the female reproductive system that produces an ovum. When released, this travels down the fallopian tube into the uterus, where it may become fertilized by a sperm. There is an ovary () found on each side of the body. ...

is superior, usually with three carpels; placentation is parietal, with two or more ovules on each placenta. The

fruit In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particu ...

is a capsule, usually with five or ten valves (three in ''Helianthemum''). The seeds are small, with a hard, water-impermeable coating, weighing around 1 mg.Thanos, C. A., K. Georghiou, C. Kadis, C. Pantazi (1992). Cistaceae: a plant family with hard seeds. ''Israel Journal of Botany'' 41 (4-6): 251-263. (Available online
Abstract

Full text (PDF)
) Recently the

neotropical The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropical terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperate zone. Definition In bioge ...

tree In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are ...

Pakaraimaea dipterocarpacea ''Pakaraimaea'' is a genus of trees in the family Cistaceae. The genus contains a single species, ''Pakaraimaea dipterocarpacea'', from South America. The species is found in the western highlands of Guyana and in adjacent Bolivar State in Ve ...

'' is placed here, following APG IV (2016)

Ecology

The ability of Cistaceae to thrive in many Mediterranean habitats follows from two important ecological properties: mycorrhizal ability and fast renewal after wildfire. Most Cistaceae have the ability to create symbiotic relationship with root

fungi A fungus ( : fungi or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, separately from ...

of the genus ''

Tuber Tubers are a type of enlarged structure used as storage organs for nutrients in some plants. They are used for the plant's perennation (survival of the winter or dry months), to provide energy and nutrients for regrowth during the next growing ...

''.Giovannetti, G., A. Fontana (1982). Mycorrhizal synthesis between Cistaceae and Tuberaceae. ''New Phytologist'' 92, 533-537 In this relationship, the fungus complements the root system in its task of absorbing water and minerals from the soil, and thus allows the host plant to dwell on particularly poor soils. In addition, an interesting quality of ''T. melanosporum'' is its ability to kill all vegetation except the host plant within the reach of its mycelium, and thus to give its host some sort of "exclusiveness" for the adjacent land area. Cistaceae have also optimally adapted to the wildfires that frequently eradicate large areas of forest. The plants cast their seeds in the soil during the growth period, but they do not germinate in the next season. Their hard coating is impermeable to the water, and thus the seeds remain dormant for a long period of time. This coating together with their small size allows these plants to establish a large seed bank rather deep in the soil. Once the fire comes and kills the vegetation in the area, the seed coating softens or cracks as a result of the heating, and the surviving seeds

germinate Germination is the process by which an organism grows from a seed or spore. The term is applied to the sprouting of a seedling from a seed of an angiosperm or gymnosperm, the growth of a sporeling from a spore, such as the spores of fungi, fer ...

shortly after the fire. This mechanism allows the Cistaceae to produce a large number of young shoots simultaneously and at the right time, and thus to obtain an important advantage over other plants in the process of repopulating the area.

Systematics

Molecular analyses of

angiosperms Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants th ...

have placed Cistaceae within the

Malvales 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. The plants are mostly shrubs and ...

, forming a clade with two families of tropical trees,

Dipterocarpaceae Dipterocarpaceae is a family of 16 genera and about 695 known species of mainly tropical lowland rainforest trees. The family name, from the type genus ''Dipterocarpus'', is derived from Greek (''di'' = two, ''pteron'' = wing and ''karpos'' = fru ...

and

Sarcolaenaceae The Sarcolaenaceae are a family of flowering plants endemic to Madagascar. The family includes 79 species of mostly evergreen trees and shrubs in ten genera. Recent DNA studies indicate that the Sarcolaenaceae are a sibling taxon to the family ...

. Savolainen, V., M. W. Chase, S. B. Hoot, C. M. Morton, D. E. Soltis, C. Bayer, M. F. Fay, A. Y. De Bruijn, S. Sullivan, and Y.-L. Qiu. 2000. Phylogenetics of Flowering Plants Based on Combined Analysis of Plastid atpB and rbcL Gene Sequences. Syst Biol 49:306-362.Soltis, D. E.,

P. S. Soltis Pamela Soltis (born November 13, 1957) is an American botanist. She is a distinguished professor at the University of Florida, curator at the Florida Museum of Natural History, principal investigator of the Laboratory of Molecular Systematics a ...

, M. W. Chase, M. E. Mort, D. C. Albach, M. Zanis, V. Savolainen, W. H. Hahn, S. B. Hoop, M. F. Fay, M. Axtell, S. M. Swensen, L. M. Prince, W. J. Kress, K. C. Nison, and J. S. Farris. 2000. Angiosperm phylogeny inferred from 18S rDNA, vbcL, and atpB sequences. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 133:381-461. Recent

phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek φυλή/ φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups o ...

studies confirm the

monophyly In cladistics for a group of organisms, monophyly is the condition of being a clade—that is, a group of taxa composed only of a common ancestor (or more precisely an ancestral population) and all of its lineal descendants. Monophyletic grou ...

of Cistaceae on the basis of

plastid The plastid (Greek: πλαστός; plastós: formed, molded – plural plastids) is a membrane-bound organelle found in the Cell (biology), cells of plants, algae, and some other eukaryotic organisms. They are considered to be intracellular endosy ...

sequences and morphological

synapomorphies In phylogenetics, an apomorphy (or derived trait) is a novel character or character state that has evolved from its ancestral form (or plesiomorphy). A synapomorphy is an apomorphy shared by two or more taxa and is therefore hypothesized to have ...

.Guzmán, B. and P. Vargas. 2009. Historical biogeography and character evolution of Cistaceae (Malvales) based on analysis of plastid rbcL and trnL-trnF sequences. Organisms Diversity & Evolution 9:83-99. Within Cistaceae, eight genera are recognized, including five in the

(''

Cistus ''Cistus'' (from the Greek ''kistos'') is a genus of flowering plants in the rockrose family Cistaceae, containing about 20 species (Ellul ''et al.'' 2002). They are perennial shrubs found on dry or rocky soils throughout the Mediterranean region ...

'', ''

Fumana ''Fumana'' (needle sunrose) is a small genus of flowering plants in the family Cistaceae. They are small perennial shrubs with five-lobed yellow flowers, native to rocky and sandy soils of Europe and wider Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea ...

'', ''

Halimium ''Halimium'' (rockrose, false sun-rose, or halimium) is a genus of 12 species of evergreen or semi-evergreen subshrubs in the family Cistaceae, closely related to '' Cistus''. They are native to Europe, North Africa and Asia Minor, with the cent ...

'', ''

Helianthemum ''Helianthemum'' , known as rock rose, sunrose, rushrose, or frostweed,' ...

'', ''

Tuberaria ''Tuberaria'' is a genus of about 12 species of annual or perennial plants in the rockrose family Cistaceae, native to western and southern Europe. They occur on dry, stony sites, often close to the sea. The leaves are in a rosette at the base ...

'') and three in the temperate regions of

(''

Crocanthemum ''Crocanthemum'' is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cistaceae. They are native to both North and South America where they are widespread. The common name frostweed relates to the ice crystals which form from sap exuding from cracks near ...

'', ''

Hudsonia ''Hudsonia'' (goldenheather, poverty grass) is a small genus of three species of flowering plants in the family Cistaceae, native to North America. They are typical of sand dune habitats. They are evergreen subshrubs growing to 20 cm tall ...

'', ''

''). These eight genera can be grouped into five major lineages within Cistaceae: *a basal clade of the genus ''

'' *the New World clade of ''

'' *the ''

Helianthemum ''Helianthemum'' , known as rock rose, sunrose, rushrose, or frostweed,' ...

'' s. l. clade, consisting of the sister groups ''

'' and ''

'' from the

New World The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 3 ...

, and ''

Helianthemum ''Helianthemum'' , known as rock rose, sunrose, rushrose, or frostweed,' ...

'' s. s. from the

Old World The "Old World" is a term for Afro-Eurasia that originated in Europe , after Europeans became aware of the existence of the Americas. It is used to contrast the continents of Africa, Europe, and Asia, which were previously thought of by the ...

*the ''

'' clade *a cohesive complex of ''

'' and ''

'' species

Cultivation and uses

''Cistus'', ''Halimium'' and ''Helianthemum'' are widely cultivated

ornamental plant Ornamental plants or garden plants are plants that are primarily grown for their beauty but also for qualities such as scent or how they shape physical space. Many flowering plants and garden varieties tend to be specially bred cultivars that i ...

s. Their soil requirements are modest, and their hardiness allows them to survive well even the snowy winters of Northern Europe. Some ''Cistus'' species, mostly ''C. ladanifer'', are used to produce an aromatic resin, used in the

perfume Perfume (, ; french: parfum) is a mixture of fragrant essential oils or aroma compounds (fragrances), fixatives and solvents, usually in liquid form, used to give the human body, animals, food, objects, and living-spaces an agreeable scent. Th ...

industry. The ability of Cistaceae to create mycorrhizal relation with

truffle A truffle is the fruiting body of a subterranean ascomycete fungus, predominantly one of the many species of the genus ''Tuber''. In addition to ''Tuber'', many other genera of fungi are classified as truffles including ''Geopora'', ''Peziz ...

mushroom (''Tuber'') prompted several studies about using them as host plants for truffle cultivation. The small size of ''Cistus'' shrubs could prove favorable, as they take up less space than traditional hosts, such as

oak An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' (; Latin "oak tree") of the beech family, Fagaceae. There are approximately 500 extant species of oaks. The common name "oak" also appears in the names of species in related genera, notably ''L ...

(''Quercus'') or

pine A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. The World Flora Online created by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Missouri Botanical Garden accep ...

(''Pinus''), and could thus lead to larger yield per field unit. Cistaceae has been listed as one of the 38 plants used to prepare Bach flower remedies, a kind of

alternative medicine Alternative medicine is any practice that aims to achieve the healing effects of medicine despite lacking biological plausibility, testability, repeatability, or evidence from clinical trials. Complementary medicine (CM), complementary and alt ...

promoted for its effect on health. However, according to

Cancer Research UK Cancer Research UK (CRUK) is the world's largest independent cancer research organization. It is registered as a charity in the United Kingdom and Isle of Man, and was formed on 4 February 2002 by the merger of The Cancer Research Campaign and t ...

, "there is no scientific evidence to prove that flower remedies can control, cure or prevent any type of disease, including cancer".

Symbolism

In the Victorian

language of flowers Floriography (language of flowers) is a means of cryptological communication through the use or arrangement of flowers. Meaning has been attributed to flowers for thousands of years, and some form of floriography has been practiced in tradition ...

, the

gum cistus ''Cistus'' (from the Greek ''kistos'') is a genus of flowering plants in the rockrose family Cistaceae, containing about 20 species (Ellul ''et al.'' 2002). They are perennial shrubs found on dry or rocky soils throughout the Mediterranean regio ...

of the Cistaceae plant family symbolized imminent death.

Synonymous genera

These generic names inside Cistaceae were defined in various publications, but their members were synonymised with the eight accepted genera by later research. * ''Anthelis'' * ''Aphananthemum'' * ''Atlanthemum'' * ''Fumanopsis'' * ''Helianthemon'' * ''Hemiptelea'' * ''Heteromeris'' * ''Horanthes'' * ''Horanthus'' * ''Ladanium'' * ''Ladanum'' * ''Lecheoides'' * ''Lechidium'' * ''Ledonia'' * ''Libanotis'' * ''Planera'' * ''Platonia'' * ''Pomelina'' * ''Psistina'' * ''Psistus'' * ''Rhodax'' * ''Rhodocistus'' * ''Stegitris'' * ''Stephanocarpus'' * ''Strobon'' * ''Taeniostema'' * ''Therocistus'' * ''Trichasterophyllum'' * ''Xolantha'' * ''Xolanthes''

Fossil record

†''Cistinocarpum roemeri'', a middle

Oligocene The Oligocene ( ) is a geologic epoch of the Paleogene Period and extends from about 33.9 million to 23 million years before the present ( to ). As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that define the epoch are well identified but the ...

macrofossil Macrofossils, also known as megafossils, are preserved organic remains large enough to be visible without a microscope. The term ''macrofossil'' stands in opposition to the term microfossil. Microfossils, by contrast, require substantial magnifica ...

from

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

is described as an ancestor of extant Cistaceae.

fossil pollen Paleobotany, which is also spelled as palaeobotany, is the branch of botany dealing with the recovery and identification of plant remains from geological contexts, and their use for the biological reconstruction of past environments (paleogeogr ...

have been found in

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

References

External links

* Page R. G
The Cistus & Halimium Website
- th

contains many references to Cistaceae. * Stevens P.F. (2001 onwards)
Angiosperm Phylogeny Website
. Version 5, May 2004. {{Taxonbar, from=Q156282 Malvales families