Schoepfiaceae is a

family Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...

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 th ...

s recognized in the

APG III system The APG III system of flowering plant classification is the third version of a modern, mostly molecular-based, system of plant taxonomy being developed by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (APG). Published in 2009, it was superseded in 2016 by a fur ...

of 2009. The family was previously only recognized by few taxonomists; the plants in question usually being assigned to family

Olacaceae Olacaceae is a family (biology), family of flowering plants in the order Santalales. They are woody plants, native throughout the tropical regions of the world. , the Circumscription (taxonomy), circumscription of the family varies; some sources ...

and

Santalaceae The Santalaceae, sandalwoods, are a widely distributed family of flowering plants (including small trees, shrubs, perennial herbs, and epiphytic climbersHewson & George t al.br>''Santalaceae'' taxonomy, 1984, pp. 191-194.) which, like other mem ...

. The genus ''

Schoepfia ''Schoepfia'' is a genus of small hemiparasitic trees, flowering plants belonging to the family Schoepfiaceae. The genus has long been placed in the Olacaceae family. Description Plants in this genus are small trees or shrubs which exhibit h ...

'' is, according to molecular studies, more closely related to the families

Misodendraceae ''Misodendrum'' is a genus of hemiparasites which grow as mistletoes on various species of ''Nothofagus''. Its species are all restricted to South America. The name of the genus is incorrectly spelt in a number of ways, including ''Misodendron'' ...

and

Loranthaceae Loranthaceae, commonly known as the showy mistletoes, is a family of flowering plants. It consists of about 75 genera and 1,000 species of woody plants, many of them hemiparasites. The three terrestrial species are '' Nuytsia floribunda'' (the ...

, and to uphold the criteria of

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 ...

it must be excluded from

. Further investigations have also shown that the South American genera ''

Arjona Arjona may refer to: * Arjona, Bolívar, Colombia * Arjona, Spain * Taifa of Arjona, a medieval taifa kingdom in Spain * ''Arjona'' (plant), genus of plants in the family Schoepfiaceae People with the surname * Adria Arjona (born 1992), Puerto R ...

'' and '' Quinchamalium'' (previously in the family

) are part of this family. Thus the family contains three genera. ''Quinchamalium'' was thought to comprise 21 species in 2015, but this was reduced to a single widespread and morphologically variable species in that year. Christenhusz ''et al''. claimed there was a total of 58 known species in 2016, but for some reason counted 25 species of ''Quinchamalium'' and eight of ''Arjona''. *''

'' Cavanilles (5 or 6 species) – western and southern South America *'' Quinchamalium'' Molina (1 species) – Andes and temperate South America *''

'' Schreber (25 species) – temperate and tropical East Asia, tropical America

References

External links

Schoepfiaceae on the Parasitic Plant Connection web page
{{Taxonbar, from=Q132784 Eudicot families