Turneraceae

Kunth Carl Sigismund Kunth (18 June 1788 – 22 March 1850), also Karl Sigismund Kunth or anglicized as Charles Sigismund Kunth, was a German botanist. He is known for being one of the first to study and categorise plants from the American continents, ...

ex DC. () is a

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

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 consisting of 120

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 appropriate s ...

in 10 genera. The

Cronquist system The Cronquist system is a taxonomic classification system of flowering plants. It was developed by Arthur Cronquist in a series of monographs and texts, including ''The Evolution and Classification of Flowering Plants'' (1968; 2nd edition, 1988) ...

placed the Turneracids in the order

Violales Violales is a botanical name of an order of flowering plants and takes its name from the included family Violaceae; it was proposed by Lindley (1853). The name has been used in several systems, although some systems used the name Parietales for ...

, but it is not currently recognized as a family by the

Angiosperm Phylogeny Group The Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (APG) is an informal international group of systematic botanists who collaborate to establish a consensus on the taxonomy of flowering plants (angiosperms) that reflects new knowledge about plant relationships disc ...

in the APG III system of 2009, which includes the taxa in the Turneraceae in

Passifloraceae The Passifloraceae are a family of flowering plants, containing about 750 species classified in around 27 genera. They include trees, shrubs, lianas, and climbing plants, and are mostly found in tropical regions. The family takes its name from ...

as a subfamily (Turneroideae).

Description

Most species in Turneraceae are tropical or sub- tropical shrubs, with a few trees. Half of the family's species belong to the genus ''Turnera'', including the herb

damiana ''Turnera diffusa'', known as damiana, is a shrub native to southern Texas in the United States, Central America, Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean. It belongs to the family Passifloraceae. Damiana is a relatively small, woody shrub tha ...

(''T. diffusa, T. aphrodisiaca''), the yellow alder (''T. pumilea''), which is not really an

alder Alders are trees comprising the genus ''Alnus'' in the birch family Betulaceae. The genus comprises about 35 species of monoecious trees and shrubs, a few reaching a large size, distributed throughout the north temperate zone with a few sp ...

, and the "ramgoat dashalong" (''T. ulmifolia''). Another type of plant in Turneraceae with a vernacular name is stripeseed, which is actually three different species of the genus ''Piriqueta'' - the pitted stripeseed (''P. cistoides''), the rigid stripeseed (''P. racemosa''), and the purple stripeseed (''P. viscosa'').

Genera

The genera typically included in this family are: *'' Adenoa'' *'' Erblichia'' *'' Hyalocalyx'' *'' Loewia'' *'' Mathurina'' *'' Piriqueta'' *'' Stapfiella'' *'' Streptopetalum'' *'' Tricliceras'' (''Wormskioldia'') *'' Turnera''

References

External links

Entry on Turneraceae
from L. Watson and M. J. Dallwitz (1992 onwards). The Families of Flowering Plants. Malpighiales families Historically recognized angiosperm families {{Malpighiales-stub