''Gerrardina'' is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

of two

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriat ...

of trees, shrubs, and scrambling shrubs found in southeastern

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

. Until recently, the genus was placed in the polyphyletic family

Flacourtiaceae The Flacourtiaceae is a defunct family of flowering plants whose former members have been scattered to various families, mostly to the Achariaceae and Salicaceae. It was so vaguely defined that hardly anything seemed out of place there and it beca ...

, but it was abnormal there due to its apical placentation, small embryos, and mucilaginous foliar epidermis. Analyses of DNA data indicated that the genus did not fit in any known plant family and not clearly in any then-recognized order, and a new family, Gerrardinaceae, was thus created for it.Alford, M. H. 2006. Gerrardinaceae: a new family of African flowering plants unresolved among Brassicales, Huerteales, Malvales, and Sapindales. ''Taxon'' 55: 959-964. Later analyses of additional DNA dataWorberg, A., M. H. Alford, D. Quandt, and T. Borsch. 2009. Huerteales sister to Brassicales plus Malvales, and newly circumscribed to include ''Dipentodon'', ''Gerrardina'', ''Huertea'', ''Perrottetia'', and ''Tapiscia''. ''Taxon'' 58(2):468-478. and data from wood anatomy Christenhusz, M. J. M., M. F. Fay, J. J. Clarkson, P. Gasson, J. Morales Can, J. B. Jiménez Barrios, & M. W. Chase. 2010. Petenaeaceae, a new angiosperm family in Huerteales with a distant relationship to ''Gerrardina'' (Gerrardinaceae). Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 164: 16–25. indicated that the family should be placed in the order

Huerteales Huerteales is the botanical name for an order of flowering plants.Peter F. Stevens (2001 onwards). "Huerteales". In: Angiosperm Phylogeny Website. In: Missouri Botanical Garden Website. (see ''External links'' below) It is one of the 17 orders th ...

References

* http://www.mobot.org/MOBOT/Research/APweb/orders/huertealesweb.htm
Tree of Life: Gerrardina
Flora of Africa Huerteales Rosid genera Taxa named by Daniel Oliver {{rosid-stub