The Fabales are an

order Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood * Heterarchy, a system of organization wherein the elements have the potential to be ranked a number of d ...

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. They include all forbs (flowering plants without a woody stem), grasses and grass-like plants, a vast majority of ...

s included in the rosid group of the

eudicots The eudicots, Eudicotidae, or eudicotyledons are a clade of flowering plants mainly characterized by having two seed leaves upon germination. The term derives from Dicotyledons. Traditionally they were called tricolpates or non- magnoliid dic ...

in the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group II classification system. In the APG II circumscription, this order includes the families Fabaceae or legumes (including the subfamilies

Caesalpinioideae Caesalpinioideae is a botanical name at the rank of subfamily, placed in the large family Fabaceae or Leguminosae. Its name is formed from the generic name '' Caesalpinia''. It is known also as the peacock flower subfamily. The Caesalpinioideae ...

Mimosoideae The Mimosoideae are a traditional subfamily of trees, herbs, lianas, and shrubs in the pea family (Fabaceae) that mostly grow in tropical and subtropical climates. They are typically characterized by having radially symmetric flowers, with petals ...

, and

Faboideae The Faboideae are a subfamily of the flowering plant family Fabaceae or Leguminosae. An acceptable alternative name for the subfamily is Papilionoideae, or Papilionaceae when this group of plants is treated as a family. This subfamily is widely ...

), Quillajaceae,

Polygalaceae The Polygalaceae or the milkwort family are made up of flowering plants in the order Fabales. They have a near-cosmopolitan range, with about 27 genera and ''ca''. 900 known species of herbs, shrubs and trees. Over half of the species are in on ...

or milkworts (including the families Diclidantheraceae, Moutabeaceae, and Xanthophyllaceae), and

Surianaceae The Surianaceae are a family of plants in the order Fabales with five genera and eight known species. It has an unusual distribution: the genus ''Recchia'' is native to Mexico, and the sole member of '' Suriana'', '' S. maritima'', is a coa ...

. Under the

Cronquist system The Cronquist system is a taxonomic classification system of flowering plants. It was developed by Arthur Cronquist in a series of monographs and texts, including ''The Evolution and Classification of Flowering Plants'' (1968; 2nd edition, 1988) ...

and some other plant classification systems, the order Fabales contains only the family Fabaceae. In the classification system of Dahlgren the Fabales were in the

superorder Order ( la, ordo) is one of the eight major hierarchical taxonomic ranks in Linnaean taxonomy. It is classified between family and class. In biological classification, the order is a taxonomic rank used in the classification of organisms and ...

Fabiflorae (also called Fabanae) with three families corresponding to the subfamilies of Fabaceae in APG II. The other families treated in the Fabales by the APG II classification were placed in separate orders by Cronquist, the Polygalaceae within its own order, the Polygalales, and the Quillajaceae and Surianaceae within the

Rosales Rosales () is an order of flowering plants.Peter F. Stevens (2001 onwards). "Rosales". At: Trees At: Angiosperm Phylogeny Website. At: Missouri Botanical Garden Website. (see ''External links'' below) It is sister to a clade consisting of Faga ...

. The Fabaceae, as the third-largest plant family in the world, contain most of the diversity of the Fabales, the other families making up a comparatively small portion of the order's diversity. Research in the order is largely focused on the Fabaceae, due in part to its great biological diversity, and to its importance as food plants. The Polygalaceae are fairly well researched among plant families, in part due to the large diversity of the genus ''

Polygala ''Polygala'' is a large genus of flowering plants belonging to the family Polygalaceae. They are commonly known as milkworts or snakeroots. The genus is distributed widely throughout much of the worldLepidoptera (

butterfly Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The group comprises ...

and

moth Moths are a paraphyletic group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not butterflies, with moths making up the vast majority of the order. There are thought to be approximately 160,000 species of moth, many of ...

) species. While taxonomists using molecular phylogenetic techniques find strong support for the order, questions remain about the morphological relationships of the Quillajaceae and Surianaceae to the rest of the order, due in part to limited research on these families.

Distribution

The Fabales are a cosmopolitan order of plants, except only the subfamily

Papilionoideae The Faboideae are a subfamily of the flowering plant family Fabaceae or Leguminosae. An acceptable alternative name for the subfamily is Papilionoideae, or Papilionaceae when this group of plants is treated as a family. This subfamily is wide ...

(Faboideae) of the Fabaceae are well dispersed throughout the northern part of the North Temperate Zone.

Phylogeny

The

phylogeny A phylogenetic tree (also phylogeny or evolutionary tree Felsenstein J. (2004). ''Inferring Phylogenies'' Sinauer Associates: Sunderland, MA.) is a branching diagram or a tree showing the evolutionary relationships among various biological spe ...

of the Fabales is shown below.

Gallery

Image:Lathyrus tuberosa (Guixa).jpg, Tuberous pea (''

Lathyrus tuberosus ''Lathyrus tuberosus'' (also known as the tuberous pea, tuberous vetchling, earthnut pea, aardaker, or tine-tare) is a small, climbing perennial plant, native in moist temperate parts of Europe and Western Asia. The plant is a trailer or weak cl ...

'') of the Fabaceae Image:Quillaja saponaria.jpg, Soap bark tree ('' Quillaja saponaria'') of the Quillajaceae Image:Polygala myrtifolia0.jpg, Milkwort (''Polygala myrtifolia'') of the

File:Polygala elongata in Talakona, AP I IMG 8388.jpg, Milkwort (''Polygala elongata'') of the

Image:Suriana maritima flowers.JPG, Bay cedar (''

Suriana maritima ''Suriana'' is a monotypic genus of flowering plants containing only ''Suriana maritima'', which is commonly known as bay cedar. Distribution It has a pantropical distribution and can be found on coasts in the New and Old World tropics. Descri ...

'' of the

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q21878 Angiosperm orders