What is "caryophyllidae"

Dicotyledonae \Dicotyledonae\ n. (Bot.) a class of plants comprising those seed plants that produce an embryo with two cotyledons and net-veined leaves; divided into six (not always well distinguished) subclasses (or superorders): Magnoliidae and Hamamelidae (considered primitive); Caryophyllidae (an early and distinctive offshoot); and three more or less advanced groups: Dilleniidae; Rosidae; Asteridae.

Syn: Dicotyledones, class Dicotyledones, class Dicotyledonae, Magnoliopsida, class Magnoliopsida.

Caryophyllidae \Caryophyllidae\ n. a group of families of mostly flowers having basal or free-central placentation and trinucleate pollen (binucleate pollen is commoner in flowering plants); it contains 14 families including: Caryophyllaceae (carnations and pinks); Aizoaceae; Amaranthaceae; Batidaceae; Chenopodiaceae; Cactaceae (order Opuntiales); Nyctaginaceae; Phytolaccaceae; it corresponds approximately to order Caryophyllales; it is sometimes classified as a superorder.

Syn: subclass Caryophyllidae.

Caryophyllidae is a botanical name at the rank of subclass. At the moment there is no complete consensus about what orders it includes, except that it presumably contains the order Caryophyllales. Note that this is only a naming difficulty: what to call various taxa of plants; there is little debate about how the plants in question are related.

A well-known system that used this name is the Cronquist system, and in the original, 1981, version of this system the circumscription was:

• subclass Caryophyllidae order Caryophyllales order Polygonales order Plumbaginales

By and large, these plants form the order Caryophyllales in the APG II system, 2003.

Category:Plant taxonomy