Torricelliaceae
Encyclopedia
Torricelliaceae is a family
of tree
s native
to Madagascar
and south-west Asia. It contains three genera
, Aralidium
, Melanophylla
and Torricellia. Under the APG II system
each of these genera was placed in its own family, but with the proviso that "Some of the families are monogeneric and could possibly be merged when well-supported sister-group relationships have been established." Such a relationship was established for these three genera in 2004. In the APG III system
, these three genera constitute the family Torricelliaceae.
Family (biology)
In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...
of tree
Tree
A tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...
s native
Indigenous (ecology)
In biogeography, a species is defined as native to a given region or ecosystem if its presence in that region is the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention. Every natural organism has its own natural range of distribution in which it is regarded as native...
to Madagascar
Madagascar
The Republic of Madagascar is an island country located in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa...
and south-west Asia. It contains three genera
Genera
Genera is a commercial operating system and development environment for Lisp machines developed by Symbolics. It is essentially a fork of an earlier operating system originating on the MIT AI Lab's Lisp machines which Symbolics had used in common with LMI and Texas Instruments...
, Aralidium
Aralidium
Aralidium is a genus in the plant family Torricelliaceae. It includes the single species Aralidium pinnatifidum, a small tree or shrub distributed in southeastern Asia, Malaysia, and Indonesia....
, Melanophylla
Melanophylla
Melanophylla is a genus of flowering plants endemic to Madagascar. The genus contains seven species of small trees and shrubs.Under the APG II system this genus was placed alone in family Melanophyllaceae, but with the rider that "[s]ome of the families are monogeneric and could possibly be merged...
and Torricellia. Under the APG II system
APG II system
The APG II system of plant classification is the second, now obsolete, version of a modern, mostly molecular-based, system of plant taxonomy that was published in April 2003 by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group. It was a revision of the first APG system, published in 1998, and was superseded in 2009...
each of these genera was placed in its own family, but with the proviso that "Some of the families are monogeneric and could possibly be merged when well-supported sister-group relationships have been established." Such a relationship was established for these three genera in 2004. In the APG III system
APG III system
The APG III system of flowering plant classification is the third version of a modern, mostly molecular-based, system of plant taxonomy...
, these three genera constitute the family Torricelliaceae.