''Euploca'' is an almost
cosmopolitan
Cosmopolitan may refer to:
Food and drink
* Cosmopolitan (cocktail), also known as a "Cosmo"
History
* Rootless cosmopolitan, a Soviet derogatory epithet during Joseph Stalin's anti-Semitic campaign of 1949–1953
Hotels and resorts
* Cosmopoli ...
genus of plants with around 100 species.
It was first described by
Thomas Nuttall
Thomas Nuttall (5 January 1786 – 10 September 1859) was an England, English botany, botanist and zoologist who lived and worked in America from 1808 until 1841.
Nuttall was born in the village of Long Preston, near Settle, North Yorkshire, S ...
in 1837.
While part of the broadly defined
Boraginaceae
Boraginaceae, the borage or forget-me-not family, includes about 2,000 species of shrubs, trees and herbs in 146, to 156 genera with a worldwide distribution.
The APG IV system from 2016 classifies the Boraginaceae as single family of the order ...
in the
APG IV
The APG IV system of flowering plant classification is the fourth version of a modern, mostly molecular-based, system of plant taxonomy for flowering plants (angiosperms) being developed by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (APG). It was publishe ...
system from 2016,
a revision of the order
Boraginales
Boraginales is an order of flowering plants in the asterid clade. It includes the Boraginaceae and a number of other families, with a total of about 125 genera and 2,700 species. Its herbs, shrubs, trees and lianas (vines) have a worldwide distr ...
from the same year includes ''Euploca'' in the separate family
Heliotropiaceae Heliotropiaceae is a cosmopolitan family of flowering plants with approximately 450 species worldwide, though it is concentrated especially in the tropics and subtropics.
There are the following four genera in the family:
* ''Heliotropium (''incl. ...
.
Its species used to be classified in the genera ''Hilgeria'' and ''Schleidenia'' and in ''
Heliotropium
''Heliotropium'' is a genus of flowering plants in the heliotrope family, Heliotropiaceae. There are around 325 species in this almost cosmopolitan genus, which are commonly known as heliotropes (sg. ). It is highly toxic for dogs and cats.
Et ...
'' sect. ''Orthostachys'', but were found to form an independent lineage in a
molecular phylogenetic
Molecular phylogenetics () is the branch of phylogeny that analyzes genetic, hereditary molecular differences, predominantly in DNA sequences, to gain information on an organism's evolutionary relationships. From these analyses, it is possible to ...
analysis, more closely related to ''
Myriopus
''Myriopus'' is a genus of flowering plants in the borage and forget-me-not family Boraginaceae (or Heliotropiaceae Heliotropiaceae is a cosmopolitan family of flowering plants with approximately 450 species worldwide, though it is concentrated ...
'' than to ''Heliotropium''.
While many species use the
photosynthetic pathway,
there are also – intermediate species.
Species have leaves with a -typical
Kranz anatomy
carbon fixation or the Hatch–Slack pathway is one of three known photosynthetic processes of carbon fixation in plants. It owes the names to the 1960's discovery by Marshall Davidson Hatch and Charles Roger Slack that some plants, when suppl ...
.
Selected species:
*''
E. convolvulacea'' (sweet-scented heliotrope, showy heliotrope)
*''
E. filiformis''
*''
E. fruticosa''
*''
E. greggii''
*''
E. humilis''
*''
E. ovalifolia''
*''
E. polyphylla''
*''
E. procumbens''
*''
E. pulvina''
*''
E. salicoides''
*''
E. strigosa''
*''
E. tenella''
References
Boraginaceae
Boraginaceae genera
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