Caryophyllales

The Caryophyllales is a large and diverse order of flowering plants. This group is part of the core eudicots, which is a major group of flowering plants. Within this order, you can find many different types of life. Some members are famous garden flowers like carnations. Others are important food crops like beets, spinach, and quinoa. You might even see succulents, which are plants with fleshy stems or leaves, like cacti. This order is quite significant because it contains about 6% of all eudicot species.

One of the most interesting things about these plants is how they create color. Most core families in the Caryophyllales use special pigments called betalains. These pigments give the plants their distinct colors. However, this is not true for every single member of the order. The families Caryophyllaceae and Molluginaceae do not use betalains at all. Some other families, known as noncore families, use a different pigment called anthocyanins instead. This includes groups like the Nepenthaceae.

Scientists have discovered that this group is very large. Currently, the Caryophyllales includes 38 different families. Within those families, there are 749 genera and 11,620 distinct species. The history of this group goes back a very long time. Molecular clock calculations suggest the lineage split from other plants about 111 million years ago. To prove these plants belong together, scientists look at DNA sequences. They also look at heritable characters. These include how the anther walls develop and the structure of vessel-elements with simple perforations.

The way we classify these plants has changed over many years. In the past, different systems used different names. The Wettstein system from 1935 and the Engler system from 1964 both used the name Centrospermae. Earlier researchers also studied the anatomy of the flowers to find connections. For example, in 1936, researchers like Douglas and Dickson studied vascular patterns. They looked at how the ovaries were shaped and how the locules were placed. This helped them understand how modern flowers might have descended from older ancestors.

Today, many scientists use the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group, or APG, system. This system has been updated several times to include more families. The original APG system in 1998 included 26 families. Since then, more families have been added during different revisions. The APG II system in 2003 added three families. The APG III system in 2009 added five more families. Finally, the APG IV system in 2016 added four more families. This makes the order much larger than it was in the older Cronquist system from 1981.

The order is often divided into two main suborders. These are called Caryophyllineae and Polygonineae. In some older classification systems, these two groups were actually treated as two separate orders. One was called Polygonales and the other was Caryophyllales. Modern definitions have expanded the group to include many families that were once part of Polygonales. This expansion includes several families of carnivorous plants. These plants, such as the Droseraceae, have unique ways of getting nutrients.

You can find members of the Caryophyllales in many different environments. Some grow in dry places, like the Cactaceae family. These plants, such as the Gymnocalycium Matoensea, are often native to regions like South America.

Other members are found in wetter areas. For instance, the Nepenthaceae are known for being carnivorous. This group shows how much variety exists within a single order of plants. From desert cacti to carnivorous pitcher plants, the Caryophyllales connect many different ways of living.