Ranunculales
Ranunculales Temporal range: Early Cretaceous–Recent
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Ranunculus repens | |
Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | Plantae |
Clade: | Tracheophytes |
Clade: | Angiosperms |
Clade: | Eudicots |
Order: | Ranunculales Juss. ex Bercht. & J.Presl |
Families | |
See text |
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 known as the basal eudicots. It is the most basal clade in this group; in other words, it is sister to the remaining eudicots. Widely known members include poppies, barberries, hellebores, and buttercups.
Taxonomy
The Angiosperm Phylogeny Group recognized seven families in Ranunculales in their APG III system, published in 2009. In the preceding APG II system, they offered the option of three segregate families as shown below.
- order Ranunculales
- family Berberidaceae
- family Circaeasteraceae
- [+ family Kingdoniaceae ]
- family Eupteleaceae
- family Lardizabalaceae
- family Menispermaceae
- family Papaveraceae
- [+ family Fumariaceae ]
- [+ family Pteridophyllaceae ]
- family Ranunculaceae
Note: "+ ..." = optionally separate family (that may be split off from the preceding family).
Under this definition, well-known members of Ranunculales include buttercups, clematis, columbines, delphiniums, and poppies.
A phylogeny of Ranunculales was published in 2009, based on molecular phylogenetic analysis of DNA sequences. The authors of this paper revised the subfamilies and tribes of the order. This is reflected in the subsequent revision of the APG, APG IV (2016).
The analysis revealed that the order consisted of three clades, Eupteleaceae, Papaveraceae and a third clade, considered to be the "core" Ranuculales, consisting of the remaining five families. The phylogeny of the families is shown in the cladogram.
Cladogram of Ranunculales families | ||||||
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