Rosaceae (),
The name is derived from the type genus Rose. The family includes herbs, shrubs, and trees. Most species are deciduous, but some are evergreen.
Many economically important products come from the Rosaceae, including various edible fruits, such as , , , Apricot, Plum, Cherry, Peach, raspberries, Blackberry, , strawberries, , Crataegus, and almonds. The family also includes popular ornamental trees and shrubs, such as , Spiraea, , , and .
Among the most species-rich genera in the family are Alchemilla (270), Sorbus (260), Crataegus (260), Cotoneaster (260), Rubus (250),
Description
Rosaceae can be woody trees, shrubs, climbers or herbaceous plants.
The herbs are mostly perennials, but some annuals also exist, such as
Aphanes arvensis.
Leaves
The
leaves are generally arranged
phyllotaxis, but have an opposite arrangement in some species. They can be simple or
Pinnation compound (either odd- or even-pinnate). Compound leaves appear in around 30 genera. The leaf margin is most often serrate. Paired
are generally present and are considered a primitive feature within the family, though they have been independently lost in many groups of Amygdaloideae (previously called Spiraeoideae).
The stipules are sometimes adnate (attached surface to surface)
to the petiole. Glands or extrafloral nectaries may be present on leaf margins or petioles. Spines may be present on the midrib of leaflets and the rachis of compound leaves.
Flowers
Flowers of plants in the rose family are generally described as "showy".
They are
actinomorphic, and almost always hermaphroditic. Rosaceae generally have five
,
Pentapetalae, and many spirally arranged
. The bases of the sepals, petals, and stamens are fused together to form a characteristic cup-like structure called a
hypanthium. They can be arranged in
raceme, or heads. Solitary flowers are rare. Rosaceae have a variety of color petals, but blue is almost completely absent.
Fruits and seeds
The
occur in many varieties and were once considered the main characters for the definition of subfamilies amongst Rosaceae, giving rise to a fundamentally artificial subdivision. They can be follicles, capsules, nuts,
,
(
Prunus), and
, like the
pome of an apple, the
rose hip of a
rose, or the receptacle-derived
aggregate fruit accessory fruit fruit of a
Fragaria. Many fruits of the family are edible, but their seeds often contain
amygdalin, which can release
cyanide during digestion if the seed is damaged.
[TOXNET:
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Taxonomy
Taxonomic history
The family was traditionally divided into six subfamilies:
Rosoideae,
Spiraeoideae,
Maloideae (Pomoideae),
Amygdaloideae (Prunoideae), Neuradoideae, and Chrysobalanoideae, and most of these were treated as families by various authors.
[Caratini, Roger. La Vie de plantes. 1971. Encyclopédie Bordas.][Lawrence, G.H.M. 1960. Taxonomy of Vascular Plants. Macmillan.] Later (1971),
Chrysobalanaceae was placed in
Malpighiales and
Neuradaceae has been assigned to
Malvales. Schulze-Menz, in Engler's Syllabus edited by Melchior (1964), recognized Rosoideae, Dryadoideae, Lyonothamnoideae, Spireoideae, Amygdaloideae, and Maloideae.
They were primarily diagnosed by the structure of the fruits. More recent work has identified that not all of these groups were
monophyletic. Hutchinson (1964)
and Kalkman (2004)
recognized only tribes (17 and 21, respectively). Takhtajan (1997) delimited 21 tribes in 10 subfamilies:
Filipenduloideae, Rosoideae, Ruboideae, Potentilloideae, Coleogynoideae, Kerroideae, Amygdaloideae (Prunoideae), Spireoideae, Maloideae (Pyroideae), Dichotomanthoideae. A more modern model comprises three subfamilies, one of which (Rosoideae) has largely remained the same.
While the boundaries of the Rosaceae are not disputed, there is no general agreement as to how many genera it contains. Areas of divergent opinion include the treatment of Potentilla s.l. and Sorbus s.l.. Compounding the problem is that apomixis is common in several genera. This results in an uncertainty in the number of species contained in each of these genera, due to the difficulty of dividing apomictic complexes into species. For example, Cotoneaster contains between 70 and 300 species, Rose around 100 (including the taxonomically complex ), Sorbus 100 to 200 species, Crataegus between 200 and 1,000, Alchemilla around 300 species, Potentilla roughly 500, and Rubus hundreds, or possibly even thousands of species.
Genera
Identified clades include:
-
Subfamily Rosoideae: Traditionally composed of those genera bearing aggregate fruits that are made up of small achenes or , and often the fleshy part of the fruit (e.g. strawberry) is the receptacle or the stalk bearing the carpels. The circumscription is now narrowed (excluding, for example, the Dryadoideae), but it still remains a diverse group containing five or six tribes and 20 or more genera, including rose, Rubus (blackberry, raspberry), Fragaria (strawberry), Potentilla, and Geum.
-
Subfamily Amygdaloideae: Within this group remains an identified clade with a pome fruit, traditionally known as subfamily Maloideae (or Pyroideae) which included genera such as Malus (apple), Cotoneaster, and Crataegus (hawthorn). To separate it at the subfamily level would leave the remaining genera as a paraphyletic group, so it has been expanded to include the former Spiraeoideae and Amygdaloideae.
-
Subfamily Dryadoideae: Fruits are achenes with hairy styles, and includes five genera ( Dryas, Cercocarpus, Chamaebatia, Cowania, and Purshia), most species of which form which host nitrogen-fixing bacteria from the genus Frankia.
Phylogeny
The
phylogeny between the three subfamilies within Rosaceae are unresolved. There are three competing hypotheses:
Amygdaloideae basal
Amygdaloideae has been identified as the earliest branching subfamily by Chin et al. (2014),
Li et al. (2015),
Li et al. (2016),
and Sun et al. (2016).
Most recently Zhang et al. (2017) recovered these relationships using whole
plastid genomes:
The sister relationship between Dryadoideae and Rosoideae is supported by the following shared morphological characters not found in Amygdaloideae: presence of stipules, separation of the hypanthium from the ovary, and the fruits are usually achenes.
Dryadoideae basal
Dryadoideae has been identified as the earliest branching subfamily by Evans et al. (2002)
and Potter (2003).
Most recently Xiang et al. (2017) recovered these relationships using
Cell nucleus transcriptomes:
Rosoideae basal
Rosoideae has been identified as the earliest branching subfamily by Morgan et al. (1994),
Evans (1999),
Potter et al. (2002),
Potter et al. (2007),
Töpel et al. (2012),
and Chen et al. (2016).
The following is taken from Potter et al. (2007):
The sister relationship between Amygdaloideae and Dryadoideae is supported by the following shared biochemical characters not found in Rosoideae: production of cyanogenic glycosides and production of sorbitol.
Distribution and habitat
The Rosaceae have a cosmopolitan distribution, being found nearly everywhere except for Antarctica. They are primarily concentrated in the Northern Hemisphere in regions that are not desert or tropical rainforest.
Uses
The rose family is considered one of the six most economically important crop plant families,
[B.C. Bennett (undated). Economic Botany: Twenty-Five Economically Important Plant Families. Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS) e-book] and includes
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
Cherry,
Strawberry,
Blackberry,
Raspberry,
Prunus spinosa, and
.
Many genera are also highly valued ornamental plants. These include trees and shrubs ( Cotoneaster, Chaenomeles, Crataegus, Dasiphora, Exochorda, Kerria, Photinia, Physocarpus, Prunus, Pyracantha, Rhodotypos, Rose, Sorbus, Spiraea), herbaceous perennials ( Alchemilla, Aruncus, Filipendula, Geum, Potentilla, Sanguisorba), alpine plants ( Dryas, Geum, Potentilla) and climbers ( Rosa).
However, several genera are also introduced noxious weeds in some parts of the world, costing money to be controlled. These can have negative impacts on the diversity of local ecosystems once established. Such naturalised pests include Acaena, Cotoneaster, Crataegus, and Pyracantha.
In Bulgaria and parts of western Asia, the production of rose oil from fresh flowers such as Rosa damascena, Rosa gallica, and other species is an important economic industry.
Gallery
The family Rosaceae covers a wide range of trees, bushes and plants.
External links
 Filipendula vulgaris - Inflorescence.jpg/){kind=link}