Fabales
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Fabaceae (legumes) |
Fabales is an order of flowering plants. It is included in the rosid group of the eudicots in the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group II classification system. In the APG II circumscription this order includes the families Fabaceae or legumes (including the Caesalpiniaceae, Mimosaceae, and Papilionaceae), Quillajaceae, Polygalaceae or milkworts (including the Diclidantheraceae, Moutabeaceae, and Xanthophyllaceae), and Surianaceae. Under the Cronquist system and some other plant classification systems, the order Fabales contains only the family Fabaceae. 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.
The Fabaceae, as the third largest plant family in the world, contains 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 is fairly well researched among plant families, in part due to the large diversity of the genus Polygala, and also due to members of the family, like the Fabaceae, being food plants for various Lepidoptera species.[1][2] While taxonomists using molecular phylogentic techniques find strong support for the order, it should be noted that there remain questions about the morphological relationships of the Quillajaceae and Surianaceae to the rest of the order, due in part to limited research on these families.[3]
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Distribution
The Fabales are a cosmopolitan order of plants, except that only the subfamilies Faboideae and Papilionoideae of the Fabaceae are well dispersed throughout the northern part of the North Temperate Zone.[4]
Gallery
 Lathyrus tuberosa of the Fabaceae |  Quillaja saponaria (Soap bark tree) of the Quillajaceae |  Polygala myrtifolia (Milkwort) of the Polygalaceae |  Suriana maritima of the Surianaceae |
References
Categories
Fabales | Plant taxonomy