Sabiaceae

Sabiaceae
Meliosma veitchiorum
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
(unranked): Angiosperms
(unranked): Eudicots
Order: Proteales
Family: Sabiaceae
Blume
Genera
Synonyms
  • Meliosmaceae

Sabiaceae is a family of flowering plants in the order Proteales, in the APG IV system. It comprises three genera with some 100 species, native to tropical to warm temperate regions of southern Asia and the Americas. The family has also been called Meliosmaceae Endl., 1841, nom. rej.

Description

Ecology

The anthesis is extremely short. The anthers open within the bud, but enclosed in the staminodes. On maturing the bud opens explosively at the smallest touch releasing the pollen into the air.

Plants from this genus live in humid areas along rivers, in tropical forests or in warm temperatures.

Phytochemistry

Cyanolipids absent. Pentacyclic triterpenoids, flavonols, proanthocyanidins and tannins present. The plants are not cyanogenetic.

Uses

Some species of Meliosma have a limited use in gardening and horticulture.

Fossils

The fossil genus Insitiocarpus has been found in deposits from the Cenomanian period, while the other extant genera Sabia and Meliosma have been found in European deposits from the Turonian and the Maastrichtian, respectively. The appearance of the first sabiaceae has been dated to 122-118 million years ago.

Sabia macrofossils have been recovered from the late Zanclean stage of Pliocene sites in Pocapaglia, Italy.[1]

Systematic position

The Sabiaceae are a group of flowering plants that are included in the Eudicots clade, where they form part of the basal level. In this regard they are similar to the Proteaceae, with which they share, for example, a nectariferous hypogynous disc, although they differ in the number of floral parts and the radial pentameric symmetry is completely original. Based on molecular and morphological data, the APW (Angiosperm Phylogeny Website) considers that they form part of the order Sabiales, which is the only representative of this intermediate clade between the Ranunculales and the Proteales (cf. AP-website).

In the Cronquist system the family was placed in the order Ranunculales, but more recent classifications place it as the sole family in the order Sabiales, or (as in the APG II system and APG III system), as unplaced to order and left among the basal lineages of the eudicots.[2] The Angiosperm Phylogeny Website, however, suggests the addition of Sabiaceae to the eudicot order Proteales would be sensible.[3] This was done in the APG-IV classification.

The family consists of three genera and about 160 species of woody plants. The genus Sabia often are lianas, while those in the genera Meliosma and Ophiocaryon are trees and shrubs; the latter two are sometimes treated in a separate family Meliosmaceae.

Taxa included

Theoretical introduction to Taxonomy

The family includes three genera that can be distinguished as follows:

Sabia Colebr., 1818. South, east and south east Asia to the Solomon Islands.
  • Subequal petals. Staminodes without lateral cavities. Carpels with free styles.
Ophiocaryon R.H. Schomb. ex Endl., 1841. Tropical South America.
  • Very uneven petals, the 2 internal ones very reduced. Staminodes with lateral cavities to receive the anthers. Carpels normally with one common style.
Meliosma Blume, 1823. South east Asia, Mexico, Central America, Antilles and South America.

References

  1. Messian to Zanclean vegetation and climate of Northern and Central Italy by Adele Bertini & Edoardo Martinetto, Bollettino della Societa Paleontologica Italiana, 47 (2), 2008, 105-121. Modena, 11 lugio 2008.
  2. Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (2009), "An update of the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group classification for the orders and families of flowering plants: APG III", Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 161 (2): 105–121, doi:10.1111/j.1095-8339.2009.00996.x, retrieved 2010-12-10
  3. Stevens, P. F. (2001 onwards). Angiosperm Phylogeny Website. Version 12, July 2012 [and more or less continuously updated since]. Proteales. Accessed online: 9 June 2013.

External links

Wikispecies has information related to: Sabiaceae
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