The Anisophylleaceae are a small family with four genera and about 70 species,
in the order
Cucurbitales
The Cucurbitales are an order of flowering plants, included in the rosid group of dicotyledons. This order mostly belongs to tropical areas, with limited presence in subtropical and temperate regions. The order includes shrubs and trees, togethe ...
, according to the
APG II
The APG II system (Angiosperm Phylogeny Group II system) of plant classification is the second, now obsolete, version of a modern, mostly molecular-based, system of plant taxonomy that was published in April 2003 by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Gr ...
. However, it is more isolated from the other suprafamilial
clades in this order, while it shows some similarities in flower morphology with the genus ''
Ceratopetalum'' (family
Cunoniaceae
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 ...
, order
Oxalidales
Oxalidales is an order of flowering plants, included within the rosid subgroup of eudicots. Compound leaves are common in Oxalidales and the majority of the species in this order have five or six sepals and petals. The following families are typic ...
). Several wood features of this family are more primitive than those of the other families in the order Cucurbitales.
Previously, this family was categorized under its own order, Anisophylleales, by
Takhtajan
Armen Leonovich Takhtajan or Takhtajian ( hy, Արմեն Լևոնի Թախտաջյան; russian: Армен Леонович Тахтаджян; surname also transliterated Takhtadjan, Takhtadzhi︠a︡n or Takhtadzhian, pronounced takh-tuh-JA ...
in 1997.
It is a pantropical family of shrubs and medium-sized to fairly large trees, occurring in wet, tropical forests and swamps of America, Africa and Asia.
The palmately veined
leaves have a rather leathery texture, entire margins, and are often asymmetrical at the base. They have minute stipules or simply lack them. They are alternate; spiral, or distichous, or four-ranked (such as in ''Anisophyllea''). The paired leaves may be different in size or shape.
The small
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 are regular and tri
merous Merosity (from the greek "méros," which means "having parts") refers to the number of component parts in a distinct whorl of a plant structure. The term is most commonly used in the context of a flower where it refers to the number of sepals in a ...
to pentamerous. They are usually aggregated in axillary
racemes or
panicles. The flower type varies considerably, most are monoecious, except ''Combretocarpus''; which is hermaphrodite, having perfect flowers.
The inferior, tri- or quadrilocular
ovary develops into a
drupe or a
samara (as in ''Combretocarpus'') with usually one seed, but with three or four seeds in ''Poga''.
Systematics
Modern
molecular phylogenetics
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 ...
suggest the following relationships:
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q131739
Rosid families