Olacaceae is a family of flowering plants in the order Santalales. They are woody plants, native throughout the tropical regions of the world. , the circumscription of the family varies; some sources maintain a broad family, others split it into seven segregate families.
Taxonomy The 1998 APG system and the 2003 APG II system assign it to the order Santalales in the clade core eudicots. Prior to the advent of molecular data, the circumscription of the family Olacaceae varied widely between different authorities.Valéry Malécot and Daniel L. Nickrent. 2008. "Molecular Phylogenetic Relationships of Olacaceae and Related Santalales". Systematic Botany 33(1):97-106. Among these various classifications, about 30 genera were included in the family. 15 genera are recognized for Olacaceae by the Germplasm Resources Information Network. The phylogenetic investigation published in 2008 recovered seven clades that were well-supported by molecular and morphological characters, but no formal taxonomic reorganization of the family was proposed. For this reason, Olacaceae in the broad sense was adopted by the APG III-system. The formal reconfiguration of this family (as well as the rest of the order Santalales) was published by Nickrent and co-workers in 2010 and this concept is shown below. Olacaceae in the broad sense was split into seven families, and the genus Schoepfia was placed with Arjona and Quinchamalium (both previously Santalaceae) in the family Schoepfiaceae.
Genera Olacaceae sensu stricto Dulacia - 13 species of South America Olax - ca 40 species of the Old World tropics Ptychopetalum - 2 species of tropical South America and 2 species of western and central Africa
Aptandraceae Anacolosa - 16 species of the Old World tropics Aptandra - 3 species in tropical America and 1 species in Africa Cathedra - 5 species of South America Chaunochiton - 3 species of tropical America Harmandia - one species in southeastern Asia Hondurodendron - one species in Honduras Ongokea - one species in Africa Phanerodiscus - 3 species of Madagascar
Ximeniaceae Curupira - one species in Amazonian Brazil Douradoa - one species in Brazil Malania - one species in China Ximenia - 10 species of the Old and New World tropics
Coulaceae Coula - one species in tropical western Africa Minquartia - one species in tropical America Ochanostachys - one species in western Malaysia
Strombosiaceae Diogoa - 2 species of tropical Africa Engomegoma - one species of tropical Africa Scorodocarpus - one species in tropical Asia Strombosia - 3 species of tropical Asia and 6 species of tropical Africa Strombosiopsis - 3 species of tropical Africa Tetrastylidium - 2 species of South America
Erythropalaceae
Erythropalum - one species of Indomalaysia Heisteria - ca 33 species of tropical America and 3 species in Africa Maburea - one species in Guyana
Octoknemaceae Octoknema - 14 species of tropical Africa
Unplaced genus Brachynema - morphological cladistic analysis places this genus in Ericales,Malécot V, Nickrent DL, Baas P, van den Oever L, Lobreau-Callen D (2004) A morphological cladistic analysis of Olacaceae. Syst. Bot. 29(3): 569-586. and no genetic study has yet been published
References
External links Parasitic Plant Connection: Aptandraceae Parasitic Plant Connection: Coulaceae Parasitic Plant Connection: Erythropalaceae Parasitic Plant Connection: Octoknemaceae Parasitic Plant Connection: Olacaceae Parasitic Plant Connection: Strombosiaceae Parasitic Plant Connection: Ximeniaceae