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The Fabales are an
order Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood * Heterarchy, a system of organization wherein the elements have the potential to be ranked a number of ...
of
flowering plant 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 t ...
s included in the rosid group of the
eudicots 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. Traditionally they were called tricolpates or non-magnoliid dicot ...
in the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group II classification system. In the APG II circumscription, this order includes the families
Fabaceae The Fabaceae or Leguminosae,International Code of Nomenc ...
or legumes (including the subfamilies
Caesalpinioideae Caesalpinioideae is a botanical name at the rank of subfamily, placed in the large family Fabaceae or Leguminosae. Its name is formed from the generic name ''Caesalpinia''. It is known also as the peacock flower subfamily. The Caesalpinioideae ...
,
Mimosoideae The Mimosoideae are a traditional subfamily of trees, herbs, lianas, and shrubs in the pea family (Fabaceae) that mostly grow in tropical and subtropical climates. They are typically characterized by having radially symmetric flowers, with petals ...
, and Faboideae),
Quillajaceae Quillajaceae is a family of flowering plants. It contains only two extant species, '' Quillaja brasiliensis'' and ''Quillaja saponaria ''Quillaja saponaria'', the soap bark tree or soapbark, is an evergreen tree in the family Quillajaceae ...
, Polygalaceae or milkworts (including the families Diclidantheraceae, Moutabeaceae, and Xanthophyllaceae), and Surianaceae. Under the Cronquist system and some other plant classification systems, the order Fabales contains only the family Fabaceae. In the classification system of Dahlgren the Fabales were in the
superorder Order ( la, ordo) is one of the eight major hierarchical taxonomic ranks in Linnaean taxonomy. It is classified between family and class. In biological classification, the order is a taxonomic rank used in the classification of organisms and ...
Fabiflorae (also called Fabanae) with three families corresponding to the subfamilies of Fabaceae in APG II. The other families treated in the Fabales by the APG II classification were placed in separate orders by Cronquist, the Polygalaceae within its own order, the Polygalales, and the Quillajaceae and Surianaceae within the Rosales. The Fabaceae, as the third-largest plant family in the world, contain most of the diversity of the Fabales, the other families making up a comparatively small portion of the order's diversity. Research in the order is largely focused on the Fabaceae, due in part to its great biological diversity, and to its importance as food plants. The Polygalaceae are fairly well researched among plant families, in part due to the large diversity of the genus '' Polygala'', and other members of the family being food plants for various
Lepidoptera Lepidoptera ( ) is an order of insects that includes butterflies and moths (both are called lepidopterans). About 180,000 species of the Lepidoptera are described, in 126 families and 46 superfamilies, 10 percent of the total described speci ...
(
butterfly Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The group compris ...
and
moth Moths are a paraphyletic group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not butterflies, with moths making up the vast majority of the order. There are thought to be approximately 160,000 species of moth, many of w ...
) species. While taxonomists using molecular phylogenetic techniques find strong support for the order, questions remain about the morphological relationships of the Quillajaceae and Surianaceae to the rest of the order, due in part to limited research on these families.


Distribution

The Fabales are a
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 ...
order of plants, except only the subfamily Papilionoideae (Faboideae) of the Fabaceae are well dispersed throughout the northern part of the North Temperate Zone.


Phylogeny

The
phylogeny A phylogenetic tree (also phylogeny or evolutionary tree Felsenstein J. (2004). ''Inferring Phylogenies'' Sinauer Associates: Sunderland, MA.) is a branching diagram or a tree showing the evolutionary relationships among various biological s ...
of the Fabales is shown below.


Gallery

Image:Lathyrus tuberosa (Guixa).jpg, Tuberous pea ('' Lathyrus tuberosus'') of the
Fabaceae The Fabaceae or Leguminosae,International Code of Nomenc ...
Image:Quillaja saponaria.jpg, Soap bark tree (''
Quillaja saponaria ''Quillaja saponaria'', the soap bark tree or soapbark, is an evergreen tree in the family Quillajaceae, native to warm temperate central Chile. In Chile it occurs from 32 to 40° South Latitude approximately and at up to 2000 m (6500&nb ...
'') of the
Quillaja ''Quillaja'' is a genus of flowering plants, the only extant genus in the family Quillajaceae with two or three known species. It was once thought to be in the rose family, Rosaceae Rosaceae (), the rose family, is a medium-sized family of ...
ceae Image:Polygala myrtifolia0.jpg, Milkwort (''Polygala myrtifolia'') of the Polygalaceae File:Polygala elongata in Talakona, AP I IMG 8388.jpg, Milkwort (''Polygala elongata'') of the Polygalaceae Image:Suriana maritima flowers.JPG, Bay cedar (''
Suriana maritima ''Suriana'' is a monotypic genus of flowering plants containing only ''Suriana maritima'', which is commonly known as bay cedar. Distribution It has a pantropical distribution and can be found on coasts in the New and Old World tropics. Desc ...
'' of the Surianaceae


References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q21878 Angiosperm orders