Phrymaceae also known as the Lopseed family, is a small plant family in the order Lamiales

Lamiales

Lamiales is an order in the asterid group of dicotyledonous flowering plants. It includes approximately 11,000 species divided into about 20 families...

. It now consists of about 190 species, distributed worldwide but with the majority in western North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

 (about 130 species) and Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 (about 30 species).

Previously, this family was monotypic

Monotypic

In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group with only one biological type. The term's usage differs slightly between botany and zoology. The term monotypic has a separate use in conservation biology, monotypic habitat, regarding species habitat conversion eliminating biodiversity and...

 with the genus Phryma, and limited in geographic range to eastern North America and eastern China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

. This genus was previously placed by Cronquist

Cronquist

Cronquist can refer to:* Arthur J. Cronquist, a North American botanist .* The Cronquist system, a system attributed to Arthur J. Cronquist. Many authors use their own variation of this system, which they also refer to as the Cronquist system...

 in the verbena family Verbenaceae

Verbenaceae

Verbenaceae, commonly known as the verbena family or vervain family, is a family of mainly tropical flowering plants. It contains trees, shrubs and herbs notable for heads, spikes, or clusters of small flowers, many of which have an aromatic smell.Recent phylogenetic studies have shown that...

.

New research of phylogenetic relationships (Beardsley & Olmstead, 2002) has revealed that several genera, traditionally included in the figwort family Scrophulariaceae

Scrophulariaceae

Scrophulariaceae, the figwort family, are a family of flowering plants. The plants are annual or perennial herbs with flowers with bilateral or rarely radial symmetry. Members of the Scrophulariaceae have a cosmopolitan distribution, with the majority found in temperate areas, including...

, are actually more closely related to the newly defined and expanded Phrymaceae. A more recent paper has suggested that the genus Rehmannia

Rehmannia

Rehmannia is a genus of six species of flowering plants in the order Lamiales, endemic to China.The genus was included in the family Scrophulariaceae or Gesneriaceae in some older classifications. The current placement of the genus is in neither Scrophulariaceae s.s. nor Plantaginaceae s.l....

is closely related to Mazus

Mazus

Mazus is a genus of low-growing perennial plants in the lopseed family, Phrymaceae. Consisting of around 30 species, this genus is generally found in damp habitats in lowland or mountain regions of China, Japan, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand....

and Lancea, but has also cast doubt on the inclusion of these genera in Phrymaceae.

The family Phrymaceae is mainly defined by the following three characteristics:

• Tubular, toothed calyces
  Sepal
  A sepal is a part of the flower of angiosperms . Collectively the sepals form the calyx, which is the outermost whorl of parts that form a flower. Usually green, sepals have the typical function of protecting the petals when the flower is in bud...
  
   (with five lobes).
• Stigmas with two lamellas with sensitive inner surfaces, that close together on contact with a pollinator
  Pollinator
  A pollinator is the biotic agent that moves pollen from the male anthers of a flower to the female stigma of a flower to accomplish fertilization or syngamy of the female gamete in the ovule of the flower by the male gamete from the pollen grain...
  
  .
• Capsules
  Capsule (fruit)
  In botany a capsule is a type of simple, dry fruit produced by many species of flowering plants. A capsule is a structure composed of two or more carpels that in most cases is dehiscent, i.e. at maturity, it splits apart to release the seeds within. A few capsules are indehiscent, for example...
  
   that are readily dehiscent in the length between the partitions of the locule
  Locule
  A locule is a small cavity or compartment within an organ or part of an organism ....
  
  .

Members of this family occur in the most diverse habitats, ranging from deserts, river banks or mountains. They can be annuals

Annual plant

An annual plant is a plant that usually germinates, flowers, and dies in a year or season. True annuals will only live longer than a year if they are prevented from setting seed...

 or perennials

Perennial plant

A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives for more than two years. The term is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter lived annuals and biennials. The term is sometimes misused by commercial gardeners or horticulturalists to describe only herbaceous perennials...

, with a length between a few centimeters to woody shrub

Shrub

A shrub or bush is distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and shorter height, usually under 5–6 m tall. A large number of plants may become either shrubs or trees, depending on the growing conditions they experience...

s of 4 m high.

The floral structures within Phrymaceae can be rather different, even so that a morphological assessment becomes difficult. Their corollas can be bilaterally or radially symmetrical.

Even reproduction is brought about by different breeding systems: asexual, self-fertilizing, outcrossing or mixed mating. Some are pollinated by insect

Insect

Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...

s, others by hummingbird

Hummingbird

Hummingbirds are birds that comprise the family Trochilidae. They are among the smallest of birds, most species measuring in the 7.5–13 cm range. Indeed, the smallest extant bird species is a hummingbird, the 5-cm Bee Hummingbird. They can hover in mid-air by rapidly flapping their wings...

s.

The most common fruit

Fruit

In broad terms, a fruit is a structure of a plant that contains its seeds.The term has different meanings dependent on context. In non-technical usage, such as food preparation, fruit normally means the fleshy seed-associated structures of certain plants that are sweet and edible in the raw state,...

 type in this family is a readily dehiscent capsule containing numerous seed

Seed

A seed is a small embryonic plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some stored food. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization and some growth within the mother plant...

s, but exceptions exist (an achene

Achene

An achene is a type of simple dry fruit produced by many species of flowering plants. Achenes are monocarpellate and indehiscent...

, as in Phryma leptostachya, or a berry

Berry

The botanical definition of a berry is a fleshy fruit produced from a single ovary. Grapes are an example. The berry is the most common type of fleshy fruit in which the entire ovary wall ripens into an edible pericarp. They may have one or more carpels with a thin covering and fleshy interiors....

-like fruit as in Leucocarpus).

The genus Mimulus

Mimulus

Mimulus is a diverse plant genus, the monkey-flowers and musk-flowers. The about 150 species are currently placed in the family Phrymaceae. The genus has traditionally been placed in Scrophulariaceae. The removal of Mimulus from that family has been supported by studies of chloroplast DNA first...

(with about 120 species) is not monophyletic. Six other genera are derived from within it (Glossostigma, Peplidium, Phryma, Leucocarpus, Hemichaena, and Berendtiell), and the Australian genus Elacholoma probably as well. The genus Mimulus is cosmopolitan, with most species in western North America (and the greatest number in California). It also occurs in Australia, South Africa, India, Chile, Mexico, the Himalayas and Madagascar. The taxonomic

Taxonomy

Taxonomy is the science of identifying and naming species, and arranging them into a classification. The field of taxonomy, sometimes referred to as "biological taxonomy", revolves around the description and use of taxonomic units, known as taxa...

 relationships of these species remain unclear and a redefinition is in order; a breaking up of this genus is probably the next step, requiring more than 100 name changes.

Genera

• Subfamily Mazoideae
  • Mazus
    Mazus
    Mazus is a genus of low-growing perennial plants in the lopseed family, Phrymaceae. Consisting of around 30 species, this genus is generally found in damp habitats in lowland or mountain regions of China, Japan, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand....
    
    Lour.
  • Lancea Hook.f. & Thomson
    Thomas Thomson (1817-1878)
    Thomas Thomson was a Scottish surgeon with the British East India Company before becoming a botanist. He was a friend of Joseph Dalton Hooker and helped write the first volume of Flora Indica....
    
    
• Subfamily Phrymoideae (about 160 species)
  • Mimulus
    Mimulus
    Mimulus is a diverse plant genus, the monkey-flowers and musk-flowers. The about 150 species are currently placed in the family Phrymaceae. The genus has traditionally been placed in Scrophulariaceae. The removal of Mimulus from that family has been supported by studies of chloroplast DNA first...
    
    L.
  • Dodartia L.
  • Glossostigma Wight & Arn. (with three or four lobes in the calyx instead five; contains one large and one vestigial stigma lobe)
  • Peplidium Delile (contains one large and one vestigial stigma lobe)
  • Phryma
    Phryma
    Phryma, or lopseed, is a perennial herb. The genus is native to eastern North America and Asia , and consists of either one or two species, depending on whether the American and Asian species are considered separate or not.The plant stands about 0.3 to 1.0 meters tall, and the...
    
    L.
  • Leucocarpus D.Don
  • Berendtiella Wettst. & Harms
  • Hemichaena Benth. 1841
  • Elacholoma F.Muell. & Tate (the stigma lobes are relatively long and are receptive over most of their length)