The Ranales are an obsolete taxon of the
Dicotyledons
The dicotyledons, also known as dicots (or, more rarely, dicotyls), are one of the two groups into which all the flowering plants (angiosperms) were formerly divided. The name refers to one of the typical characteristics of the group: namely, t ...
, with rank of
order typified by ''
Ranunculus
''Ranunculus'' is a large genus of about almost 1700 to more than 1800 species of flowering plants in the family Ranunculaceae. Members of the genus are known as buttercups, spearworts and water crowfoots.
The genus is distributed in Europe ...
'' (
Ranunculaceae
Ranunculaceae (buttercup or crowfoot family; Latin "little frog", from "frog") is a family of over 2,000 known species of flowering plants in 43 genera, distributed worldwide.
The largest genera are ''Ranunculus'' (600 species), ''Delphinium' ...
).
Description
The Ranunculaceae were included directly in the Thalamiflorae by
de Candolle
Augustin Pyramus (or Pyrame) de Candolle (, , ; 4 February 17789 September 1841) was a Swiss botanist. René Louiche Desfontaines launched de Candolle's botanical career by recommending him at a herbarium. Within a couple of years de Candolle ...
(1819-1824) as an order within that subclass. They were
paraphyletic
In taxonomy (general), taxonomy, a group is paraphyletic if it consists of the group's most recent common ancestor, last common ancestor and most of its descendants, excluding a few Monophyly, monophyletic subgroups. The group is said to be pa ...
and considered a very primitive group with a key position in angiosperm phylogeny.
In the
Bentham and Hooker
A taxonomic system, the Bentham & Hooker system for seed plants, was published in Bentham and Hooker's ''Genera plantarum ad exemplaria imprimis in herbariis kewensibus servata definita'' in three volumes between 1862 and 1883.
George Bentham (18 ...
classification they were characterised as having "stamens usually many, carpels free, endosperm conspicuous, embryo small". The term may be qualified by using its broader
circumscription
Circumscription may refer to:
*Circumscribed circle
*Circumscription (logic)
*Circumscription (taxonomy)
* Circumscription theory, a theory about the origins of the political state in the history of human evolution proposed by the American anthrop ...
(
sensu lato
''Sensu'' is a Latin word meaning "in the sense of". It is used in a number of fields including biology, geology, linguistics, semiotics, and law. Commonly it refers to how strictly or loosely an expression is used in describing any particular co ...
), i.e Ranales ''s.l.''.
In the Bentham and Hooker system (1862-1883), the Ranales were the first cohort of the
Thalamiflorae ''Thalamiflorae'' is a historical grouping of dicotyledons, arranged in the De Candolle system and in the Bentham and Hooker system. This group was named and published well before internationally accepted rules for botanical nomenclature. In these ...
with eight families:
*::: I. R
ANUNCULACEÆ
*::: II. D
ILLENIACEÆ
*::: III. C
ALYCANTHACEÆ
*::: IV. M
AGNOLIACEÆ
*::: V. A
NONACEÆ ic*::: VI. M
ENISPERMACEÆ
*::: VII. B
ERBERIDEÆ
*::: VIII. N
YMPHÆACEÆ
Bessey
Bessey () is a commune in the Loire department in central France.
Population
See also
*Communes of the Loire department
The following is a list of the 323 communes of the Loire department of France.
The communes cooperate in the following ...
(1915) made it a much larger entity within the
Strobiloideae The Strobiloideae are an obsolete taxonomic name, a subclass of both Monocotyledons and Dicotyledons proposed by Charles Bessey in 1915 in his taxonomic classification of plants. In this sense by not being unique it breaks the rules of botanical ...
with twenty four families. Later,
Hutchinson (1959) circumscribed the Ranales more narrowly with only four families (Ranunculaceae,
Cabombaceae
The Cabombaceae are a family of aquatic, herbaceous flowering plants. A common name for its species is water shield. The family is recognised as distinct in the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group IV system (2016). The family consists of two genera of ...
,
Ceratophyllaceae
Ceratophyllaceae is a cosmopolitan distribution, cosmopolitan family (biology), family of flowering plants including one living genus commonly found in ponds, marshes, and quiet streams in tropical and in temperate regions. It is the only extant ...
, Nymphaeaceae) within the Archychlamydeae.
Melchior
Melchior is the name traditionally given to one of the biblical Magi appearing in the Gospel of Matthew. There are many notable people with this name, or close variations.
As a first name
* Melchior Anderegg (1828–1914), Swiss mountain guide
* ...
(1964) preferred the term
Ranunculales
Ranunculales is an order of flowering plants. Of necessity it contains the family Ranunculaceae, the buttercup family, because the name of the order is based on the name of a genus in that family. Ranunculales belongs to a paraphyletic group kno ...
to include the Ranunculaceae within Archychlamydeae, the term which is still in use including seven families but little overlap with Hutchinson.
Cronquist (1968-1981), one of the more influential twentieth century classifications had eight families and placed the Ranunculales in the larger
Magnoliidae. Ranunculales has been used by most subsequent systems with the exception of
Thorne (1992), with Berberidales, but with widely varying numbers of families.
The current
APG system
The APG system (Angiosperm Phylogeny Group system) of plant classification is the first version of a modern, mostly molecular-based, system of plant taxonomy. Published in 1998 by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group, it was replaced by the improved AP ...
uses Ranunculales in the
Eudicot
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 ...
clade with seven families.
References
{{Reflist
Historically recognized angiosperm orders