Carduoideae is the

thistle Thistle is the common name of a group of flowering plants characterized by leaves with sharp spikes on the margins, mostly in the family Asteraceae. Prickles can also occur all over the planton the stem and on the flat parts of the leaves. T ...

subfamily In biological classification, a subfamily (Latin: ', plural ') is an auxiliary (intermediate) taxonomic rank, next below family but more inclusive than genus. Standard nomenclature rules end botanical subfamily names with "-oideae", and zo ...

of the

Asteraceae Asteraceae () is a large family (biology), family of flowering plants that consists of over 32,000 known species in over 1,900 genera within the Order (biology), order Asterales. The number of species in Asteraceae is rivaled only by the Orchi ...

, or sunflower family, of

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (). The term angiosperm is derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek words (; 'container, vessel') and (; 'seed'), meaning that the seeds are enclosed with ...

s. It comprises a number of tribes in various circumscriptions of the family, in addition to the Cardueae.

Takhtajan Armen Leonovich Takhtajan or Takhtajian (; surname also transliterated Takhtadjan, Takhtadzhi︠a︡n or Takhtadzhian, pronounced takh-tuh-JAHN; 10 June 1910 – 13 November 2009), was a Soviet-Armenian botanist, one of the most important figu ...

, according to Reveal, includes 10 tribes in addition to the Cardueae: the Arctotideae, the Barnadesieae, the Carlineae, the

Cichorieae The Cichorieae (also called Lactuceae) are a tribe in the plant family Asteraceae that includes 93 genera, more than 1,600 sexually reproductive species and more than 7,000 apomictic species. They are found primarily in temperate regions of the E ...

, the Echinopseae, the Eremothamneae, the Gundelieae, the Liabeae, the

Mutisieae Mutisieae is a tribe of the family Asteraceae, subfamily Mutisioideae. Genera Mutisieae genera recognized by the Global Compositae Database as of June 2022: *'' Adenocaulon'' *'' Amblysperma'' *'' Brachyclados'' *'' Chaetanthera'' *'' Chapt ...

, and the Vernonieae. Of these 11, Thorne agrees with seven in his eight-tribe taxonomy of the Carduoideae, placing the tribes Cardueae (Cynareae), plus Arctotideae, Cichorieae, Eremothamneae, Liabeae, Mutisieae, and Vernonieaes in the subfamily, plus the Tarchonantheae. The Panero and Funk classification of 2002 (a

molecular phylogenetic Molecular phylogenetics () is the branch of phylogeny that analyzes genetic, hereditary molecular differences, predominantly in DNA sequences, to gain information on an organism's evolutionary relationships. From these analyses, it is possible to ...

classification based upon chloroplast genes) places just three tribes in the subfamily: the Cardueae, plus the Dicomeae (created by Panero and Funk's paper, consisting of '' Dicoma'', '' Erythrocephalum'', '' Gladiopappus'', ''

Macledium ''Macledium'' is a genus of flowering plants in the family Asteraceae. Both ''Macledium'' and ''Dicoma'' are distributed largely in tropical and southern Africa. ''Macledium'' is distinguished from genus ''Dicoma'' by a large number of characters ...

'', '' Cloiselia'', '' Pasaccardoa'', and '' Pleiotaxis''), and the Tarchonantheae ('' Tarchonanthus'' plus '' Brachylaena''). The genus '' Oldenburgia'' may be within this subfamily but the data on this is inconclusive. The Takhtajan system divides the Asteraceae into only two subfamilies, the Asteroideae in addition to the Carduoideae, while Thorne adds the basal, monophyletic subfamily, the Barnadesioideae. The recent phylogeny of Panero and Funk divides the Asteraceae into 11 subfamilies.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q134508 Asterales subfamilies