The Cistaceae are a small family of plants (rock-rose or rock rose family) known for their beautiful

shrubs A shrub or bush is a small to medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees by their multiple ...

, which are profusely covered by

flower Flowers, also known as blooms and blossoms, are the reproductive structures of flowering plants ( angiosperms). Typically, they are structured in four circular levels, called whorls, around the end of a stalk. These whorls include: calyx, m ...

s at the time of

blossom In botany, blossoms are the flowers of stone fruit trees (genus ''Prunus'') and of some other plants with a similar appearance that flower profusely for a period of time in spring. Colloquially, flowers of orange are referred to as such as w ...

. This family consists of about 170(-200) species in eight genera that are not very distinct, distributed primarily in the temperate areas of

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

and the Mediterranean basin, but also found in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

; a limited number of species are found in

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

. Most Cistaceae are

subshrub A subshrub (Latin ''suffrutex'') or undershrub is either a small shrub (e.g. prostrate shrubs) or a perennial that is largely herbaceous but slightly woody at the base (e.g. garden pink and florist's chrysanthemum). The term is often interch ...

s and low

shrub A shrub or bush is a small to medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees by their multiple ...

s, and some are

herbaceous Herbaceous plants are vascular plants that have no persistent woody stems above ground. This broad category of plants includes many perennials, and nearly all annuals and biennials. Definitions of "herb" and "herbaceous" The fourth edition of ...

. They prefer dry and sunny habitats. Cistaceae grow well on poor

soil Soil, also commonly referred to as earth, is a mixture of organic matter, minerals, gases, water, and organisms that together support the life of plants and soil organisms. Some scientific definitions distinguish dirt from ''soil'' by re ...

s, and many of them are cultivated in

garden A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the cultivation, display, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The single feature identifying even the wildest wild garden is ''control''. The garden can incorporate bot ...

s. They often have showy yellow, pink or white flowers, which are generally short-lived. The flowers are bisexual, regular, solitary or borne in cymes; they usually have five, sometimes three, petals (''

Lechea ''Lechea'' (pinweed) is a genus in the family Cistaceae of the order Malvales.USDA, NRCS. 2014. The PLANTS Database (http://plants.usda.gov, 1 December 2014). National Plant Data Team, Greensboro, NC 27401-4901 USA. The genus contains about 18 sp ...

''). The petals are free, usually crumpled in the bud, and sometimes in the open flower (e. g. ''

Cistus incanus ''Cistus'' (from the Greek ''kistos'') is a genus of flowering plants in the rockrose family Cistaceae, containing about 20 species (Ellul ''et al.'' 2002). They are perennial shrubs found on dry or rocky soils throughout the Mediterranean regio ...

''). It has five sepals, the inner three of which are distinctly wider, and the outer two are narrow and sometimes regarded as bracteoles. The

sepal A sepal () is a part of the flower of angiosperms (flowering plants). Usually green, sepals typically function as protection for the flower in bud, and often as support for the petals when in bloom., p. 106 Etymology The term ''sepalum'' ...

arrangement is a characteristic property of the family. The

stamen The stamen (: stamina or stamens) is a part consisting of the male reproductive organs of a flower. Collectively, the stamens form the androecium., p. 10 Morphology and terminology A stamen typically consists of a stalk called the filament ...

s are numerous, of variable length, and sit on a disc; filaments are free. The

ovary The ovary () is a gonad in the female reproductive system that produces ova; when released, an ovum travels through the fallopian tube/ oviduct into the uterus. There is an ovary on the left and the right side of the body. The ovaries are end ...

is superior, usually with three carpels; placentation is parietal, with two or more ovules on each placenta. The

fruit In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants (angiosperms) that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which angiosperms disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particular have long propaga ...

is a capsule, usually with five or ten valves (three in ''Helianthemum''). The seeds are small, with a hard, water-impermeable coating, weighing around 1 mg.Thanos, C. A., K. Georghiou, C. Kadis, C. Pantazi (1992). Cistaceae: a plant family with hard seeds. ''Israel Journal of Botany'' 41 (4-6): 251-263. (Available online
Abstract

Full text (PDF)
) Recently the

neotropical The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropical terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperate zone. Definition In biogeogra ...

tree In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, e.g., including only woody plants with secondary growth, only ...

Pakaraimaea dipterocarpacea ''Pakaraimaea'' is a genus of trees in the family Cistaceae. The genus contains a single species, ''Pakaraimaea dipterocarpacea'', from South America. It was formerly placed in subfamily Pakaraimoideae of the family Dipterocarpaceae. The species ...

'' is placed here, following APG IV (2016)

Ecology

The ability of Cistaceae to thrive in many Mediterranean habitats follows from two important ecological properties: mycorrhizal ability and fast renewal after wildfire. Most Cistaceae have the ability to create symbiotic relationship with root

fungi A fungus (: fungi , , , or ; or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and mold (fungus), molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as one ...

of the genus ''

Tuber Tubers are a type of enlarged structure that plants use as storage organs for nutrients, derived from stems or roots. Tubers help plants perennate (survive winter or dry months), provide energy and nutrients, and are a means of asexual reproduc ...

''.Giovannetti, G., A. Fontana (1982). Mycorrhizal synthesis between Cistaceae and Tuberaceae. ''New Phytologist'' 92, 533-537 In this relationship, the fungus complements the root system in its task of absorbing water and minerals from the soil, and thus allows the host plant to dwell on particularly poor soils. In addition, an interesting quality of ''T. melanosporum'' is its ability to kill all vegetation except the host plant within the reach of its mycelium, and thus to give its host some sort of "exclusiveness" for the adjacent land area. Cistaceae have also optimally adapted to the wildfires that frequently eradicate large areas of forest. The plants cast their seeds in the soil during the growth period, but they do not germinate in the next season. Their hard coating is impermeable to the water, and thus the seeds remain dormant for a long period of time. This coating together with their small size allows these plants to establish a large seed bank rather deep in the soil. Once the fire comes and kills the vegetation in the area, the seed coating softens or cracks as a result of the heating, and the surviving seeds

germinate Germination is the process by which an organism grows from a seed or spore. The term is applied to the sprouting of a seedling from a seed of an flowering plant, angiosperm or gymnosperm, the growth of a sporeling from a spore, such as the sp ...

shortly after the fire. This mechanism allows the Cistaceae to produce a large number of young shoots simultaneously and at the right time, and thus to obtain an important advantage over other plants in the process of repopulating the area.

Systematics

Molecular analyses of

angiosperms Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (). The term angiosperm is derived from the Greek words (; 'container, vessel') and (; 'seed'), meaning that the seeds are enclosed within a fruit. T ...

have placed Cistaceae within the

Malvales The Malvales are an Order (biology), order of flowering plants. As circumscribed by Angiosperm Phylogeny Group, APG II-system, the order includes about 6000 species within nine Family (biology), families. The order is placed in the eurosids II, w ...

, forming a clade with two families of tropical trees,

Dipterocarpaceae Dipterocarpaceae is a family (biology), family of flowering plants with 22 genera and about 695 known species of mainly lowland tropical forest trees. Their distribution is pantropical, from northern South America to Africa, the Seychelles, India ...

and Sarcolaenaceae. Savolainen, V., M. W. Chase, S. B. Hoot, C. M. Morton, D. E. Soltis, C. Bayer, M. F. Fay, A. Y. De Bruijn, S. Sullivan, and Y.-L. Qiu. 2000. Phylogenetics of Flowering Plants Based on Combined Analysis of Plastid atpB and rbcL Gene Sequences. Syst Biol 49:306-362.Soltis, D. E.,

P. S. Soltis Pamela Soltis (born November 13, 1957) is an American botanist. She is a distinguished professor at the University of Florida, curator at the Florida Museum of Natural History, principal investigator of the Laboratory of Molecular Systematics an ...

, M. W. Chase, M. E. Mort, D. C. Albach, M. Zanis, V. Savolainen, W. H. Hahn, S. B. Hoop, M. F. Fay, M. Axtell, S. M. Swensen, L. M. Prince, W. J. Kress, K. C. Nison, and J. S. Farris. 2000. Angiosperm phylogeny inferred from 18S rDNA, vbcL, and atpB sequences. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 133:381-461. Recent

phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics () is the study of the evolutionary history of life using observable characteristics of organisms (or genes), which is known as phylogenetic inference. It infers the relationship among organisms based on empirical dat ...

studies confirm the

monophyly In biological cladistics for the classification of organisms, monophyly is the condition of a taxonomic grouping being a clade – that is, a grouping of organisms which meets these criteria: # the grouping contains its own most recent comm ...

of Cistaceae on the basis of

plastid A plastid is a membrane-bound organelle found in the Cell (biology), cells of plants, algae, and some other eukaryotic organisms. Plastids are considered to be intracellular endosymbiotic cyanobacteria. Examples of plastids include chloroplasts ...

sequences and morphological

synapomorphies In phylogenetics, an apomorphy (or derived trait) is a novel character or character state that has evolved from its ancestral form (or plesiomorphy). A synapomorphy is an apomorphy shared by two or more taxa and is therefore hypothesized to ...

.Guzmán, B. and P. Vargas. 2009. Historical biogeography and character evolution of Cistaceae (Malvales) based on analysis of plastid rbcL and trnL-trnF sequences. Organisms Diversity & Evolution 9:83-99. Within Cistaceae, eight genera are recognized, including five in the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern ...

(''

Cistus ''Cistus'' (from the Greek ''kistos'') is a genus of flowering plants in the rockrose family Cistaceae, containing about 20 species (Ellul ''et al.'' 2002). They are perennial shrubs found on dry or rocky soils throughout the Mediterranean reg ...

'', ''

Fumana ''Fumana'' (needle sunrose) is a small genus of flowering plants in the family Cistaceae. They are small perennial shrubs with five-lobed yellow flowers, native to rocky and sandy soils of Europe and wider Mediterranean region. ''Fumana'' shrubs ...

'', ''

Halimium ''Cistus'' (from the Greek ''kistos'') is a genus of flowering plants in the rockrose family Cistaceae, containing about 20 species (Ellul ''et al.'' 2002). They are perennial shrubs found on dry or rocky soils throughout the Mediterranean regio ...

'', ''

Helianthemum ''Helianthemum'' (), known as rock rose, sunrose, rushrose, or frostweed,

'', ''

Tuberaria ''Tuberaria'' is a genus of about 12 species of annual or perennial plants in the rockrose family Cistaceae, native to western and southern Europe. They occur on dry, stony sites, often close to the sea. The leaves are in a rosette at the base ...

'') and three in the temperate regions of

(''

Crocanthemum ''Crocanthemum'' is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cistaceae. They are native to both North and South America where they are widespread. The common name frostweed relates to the ice crystals which form from sap exuding from cracks near ...

'', ''

Hudsonia ''Hudsonia'' (goldenheather, poverty grass) is a small genus of three species of flowering plants in the family Cistaceae, native to North America. They are typical of sand dune habitats. They are evergreen subshrubs growing to 20 cm tall. ...

'', ''

''). These eight genera can be grouped into five major lineages within Cistaceae: *a basal clade of the genus ''

'' *the New World clade of ''

'' *the ''

Helianthemum ''Helianthemum'' (), known as rock rose, sunrose, rushrose, or frostweed,

'' s. l. clade, consisting of the sister groups ''

'' and ''

'' from the

New World The term "New World" is used to describe the majority of lands of Earth's Western Hemisphere, particularly the Americas, and sometimes Oceania."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: ...

, and ''

Helianthemum ''Helianthemum'' (), known as rock rose, sunrose, rushrose, or frostweed,

'' s. s. from the

Old World The "Old World" () is a term for Afro-Eurasia coined by Europeans after 1493, when they became aware of the existence of the Americas. It is used to contrast the continents of Africa, Europe, and Asia in the Eastern Hemisphere, previously ...

*the ''

'' clade *a cohesive complex of ''

'' and ''

'' species

Cultivation and uses

''Cistus'', ''Halimium'' and ''Helianthemum'' are widely cultivated

ornamental plant Ornamental plants or ''garden plants'' are plants that are primarily grown for their beauty but also for qualities such as scent or how they shape physical space. Many flowering plants and garden varieties tend to be specially bred cultivars th ...

s. Their soil requirements are modest, and their hardiness allows them to survive well even the snowy winters of Northern Europe. Some ''Cistus'' species, mostly ''C. ladanifer'', are used to produce an aromatic resin, used in the

perfume Perfume (, ) is a mixture of fragrance, fragrant essential oils or aroma compounds (fragrances), Fixative (perfumery), fixatives and solvents, usually in liquid form, used to give the human body, animals, food, objects, and living-spaces an agre ...

industry. The ability of Cistaceae to create mycorrhizal relation with

truffle A truffle is the Sporocarp (fungi), fruiting body of a subterranean ascomycete fungus, one of the species of the genus ''Tuber (fungus), Tuber''. More than one hundred other genera of fungi are classified as truffles including ''Geopora'', ''P ...

mushroom (''Tuber'') prompted several studies about using them as host plants for truffle cultivation. The small size of ''Cistus'' shrubs could prove favorable, as they take up less space than traditional hosts, such as

oak An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' of the beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisp ...

(''Quercus'') or

pine A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. ''World Flora Online'' accepts 134 species-rank taxa (119 species and 15 nothospecies) of pines as cu ...

(''Pinus''), and could thus lead to larger yield per field unit. Cistaceae has been listed as one of the 38 plants used to prepare Bach flower remedies, a kind of

alternative medicine Alternative medicine refers to practices that aim to achieve the healing effects of conventional medicine, but that typically lack biological plausibility, testability, repeatability, or supporting evidence of effectiveness. Such practices are ...

promoted for its effect on health. However, according to

Cancer Research UK Cancer Research UK (CRUK) is the world's largest independent cancer research organisation. It is registered as a charity in the United Kingdom and Isle of Man, and was formed on 4 February 2002 by the merger of The Cancer Research Campaign and t ...

, "there is no scientific evidence to prove that flower remedies can control, cure or prevent any type of disease, including cancer".

Symbolism

In the Victorian

language of flowers Floriography (language of flowers) is a means of cryptological communication through the use or arrangement of flowers. Meaning has been attributed to flowers for thousands of years, and some form of floriography has been practiced in tradition ...

, the gum cistus of the Cistaceae plant family symbolized imminent death.

Synonymous genera

These generic names inside Cistaceae were defined in various publications, but their members were synonymised with the eight accepted genera by later research. * ''Anthelis'' * ''Aphananthemum'' * ''Atlanthemum'' * ''Fumanopsis'' * ''Helianthemon'' * ''Hemiptelea'' * ''Heteromeris'' * ''Horanthes'' * ''Horanthus'' * ''Ladanium'' * ''Ladanum'' * ''Lecheoides'' * ''Lechidium'' * ''Ledonia'' * ''Libanotis'' * ''Planera'' * ''Platonia'' * ''Pomelina'' * ''Psistina'' * ''Psistus'' * ''Rhodax'' * ''Rhodocistus'' * ''Stegitris'' * ''Stephanocarpus'' * ''Strobon'' * ''Taeniostema'' * ''Therocistus'' * ''Trichasterophyllum'' * ''Xolantha'' * ''Xolanthes''

Fossil record

†''Cistinocarpum roemeri'', a middle

Oligocene The Oligocene ( ) is a geologic epoch (geology), epoch of the Paleogene Geologic time scale, Period that extends from about 33.9 million to 23 million years before the present ( to ). As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that defin ...

macrofossil Macrofossils, also known as megafossils, are the preserved remnants of organic beings and their activities that are large enough to be visible without a microscope. The term ''macrofossil'' stands in opposition to the term microfossil. Microfoss ...

from

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

is described as an ancestor of extant Cistaceae.

fossil pollen have been found in

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch (geology), epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.33 to 2.58Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

References

External links

* Page R. G
The Cistus & Halimium Website
- th

contains many references to Cistaceae. * Stevens P.F. (2001 onwards)
Angiosperm Phylogeny Website
. Version 5, May 2004. {{Authority control Malvales families