Resedaceae is a family of mostly

herbaceous Herbaceous plants are vascular plants that have no persistent woody stems above ground. This broad category of plants includes many perennials, and nearly all annuals and biennials. Definitions of "herb" and "herbaceous" The fourth edition ...

dicotyledonous plants comprising 107 known species in 8 to 12 genera: *''

Borthwickia ''Borthwickia'' is genus of flowering plants, containing one species, ''Borthwickia trifoliata'' from Yunnan, China and Myanmar. The common name in Chinese is 节蒴木 (jie shuo mu). It is a shrub or small tree with evergreen trifoliate leaves, ...

'' - 1 species, sometimes placed in its own family

Borthwickiaceae ''Borthwickia'' is genus of flowering plants, containing one species, ''Borthwickia trifoliata'' from Yunnan, China and Myanmar. The common name in Chinese is 节蒴木 (jie shuo mu). It is a shrub or small tree with evergreen trifoliate leaves, ...

*''

Caylusea The plant genus ''Caylusea'' is a small group of plants found in parts of Africa and India. '' Caylusea abyssinica'' is eaten as a vegetable. Selected species * '' Caylusea abyssinica'' Fisch. & C.A.Mey. * '' Caylusea canescens'' Webb * '' Cay ...

'' - 3 species *'' Forchhammeria'' - 10 species *''Homalodiscus'' - 2 species *''

Neothorelia ''Neothorelia'' is a monotypic genus of flowering plants belonging to the family Capparaceae. The only species is ''Neothorelia laotica'' . It is native to Laos in Indo-China. The genus name of ''Neothorelia'' is in honour of Clovis Thorel (1833 ...

'' - 1 species *'' Ochradenus'' - 4 species *'' Oligomeris'' - 3 species *'' Randonia'' - 1 species *'' Reseda'' - ca 55 species *''

Sesamoides ''Sesamoides'' is a genus of flowering plants belonging to the family Resedaceae Resedaceae is a family of mostly herbaceous dicotyledonous plants comprising 107 known species in 8 to 12 genera: *''Borthwickia'' - 1 species, sometimes placed in ...

'' - 1 species *'' Stixis'' - 7 species *'' Tirania'' 1 species

Taxonomy

Roman natural phylosopher Gaius Plinius Secundus or

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic ...

, who lived in the first century, is attributed to have used the name ''Reseda'' for the first time in writing. But he must have used it for another plant, because the medial effect of healing swellings and inflamations that he described, could not be reproduced from ''Reseda'' by later researcher. The British botanist

Samuel Frederick Gray Samuel Frederick Gray (10 December 1766 – 12 April 1828) was a British botanist, mycologist, and pharmacologist. He was the father of the zoologists John Edward Gray and George Robert Gray. Background He was the son of Samuel Gray, a Londo ...

erected the family Resedaceae in 1821, based on the type genus ''Reseda'' as validly described by

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, ...

. Recent molecular studies suggest that ''Oligomeris'', ''Randonia'' and ''Ochradenus'' all arose from within the ranks of ''Reseda''. This would imply that only three genera should be recognized, although as yet no nomenclatural changes have been made. The family includes annuals, biennials and perennials and is distributed in

temperate In geography, the temperate climates of Earth occur in the middle latitudes (23.5° to 66.5° N/S of Equator), which span between the tropics and the polar regions of Earth. These zones generally have wider temperature ranges throughout t ...

to sub-tropical regions of

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located enti ...

, western

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an ...

, the

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (Europ ...

East Asia East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, North Korea, South Korea ...

, North America,

Mesoamerica Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica. W ...

, the Caribbean and

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring count ...

. Resedaceae were placed 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) ...

in the order Capparales. The

APG II system The APG II system (Angiosperm Phylogeny Group II system) of plant classification is the second, now obsolete, version of a modern, mostly molecular-based, system of plant taxonomy that was published in April 2003 by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Gr ...

places it in the order Brassicales. In APG IV (2016) it was expanded to include the genera ''

'' (formerly

), ''

'', '' Stixis'', and '' Tirania'' (formerly

Stixidaceae Stixaceae is a family in the plant order Brassicales. It is no longer recognised by most taxonomists. The three genera formerly included in Stixaceae — ''Forchhammeria'', '' Stixis'' and ''Tirania ''Tirania purpurea'', the sole species in ge ...

) and ''Forchhammeria'' (formerly in

Capparaceae The Capparaceae (or Capparidaceae), commonly known as the caper family, are a family of plants in the order Brassicales. As currently circumscribed, the family contains 33 genera and about 700 species. The largest genera are ''Capparis'' (about ...

)

References

Brassicales families {{Brassicales-stub