font settings

Font Size: Large | Normal | Small
Font Face: Verdana | Geneva | Georgia

Aceraceae

(Family)

Overview

[ Back to top ]

Aceraceae is a family of also called the Maple Family. It contains two to four genera, depending upon the circumscription, of some 120 species of trees and shrubs. A common characteristic is that the leaves are opposite, and the fruit a schizocarp.1]

The maples have long been known to be closely related to the family Sapindaceae. Several taxonomists (including the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group) now include both the Aceraceae and the Hippocastanaceae in the Sapindaceae. Recent research (Harrington et al. 2005[2]) has shown that while both Aceraceae and Hippocastanaceae are monophyletic in themselves, their removal from Sapindaceae sensu lato would leave Sapindaceae sensu stricto as a paraphyletic group, particularly with reference to the genus Xanthoceras.

Photos

[ Back to top ]

Taxonomy

[ Back to top ]

The Family Aceraceae is further organized into finer groupings including:

Genera

[ Back to top ]

Acer

[more]

Dipteronia

Dipteronia is a of two living and one extinct species, regarded in the soapberry family Sapindaceae sensu lato after Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (APG I 1998, APG II 2003) and more recently (Harrington et al. 2005) )or traditionally by several authors in Aceraceae, related to the maples. [more]

Negundo

[more]

Rulac

[more]

Saccharodendron

[more]

Sacchrosphendamnus

[more]

More info about the Genus Sacchrosphendamnus may be found here.

References

[ Back to top ]
  1. ^ Aceraceae in L. Watson and M.J. Dallwitz (1992 onwards), The families of flowering plants.
  2. ^ Harrington, M. G., Edwards, K. J., Johnson, S. A., Chase, M. W., & Gadek, P. A. (2005). Phylogenetic inference in Sapindaceae sensu lato using plastid matK and rbcL DNA sequences. Systematic Botany 30: 366-382. Abstract.

Sources

[ Back to top ]
Last Revised: November 19, 2008