Buxaceae

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Buxaceae

Buxaceae is a small family

Family (biology)

In biological classification, family is a taxonomic rank. Exact details of formal nomenclature depend on the Nomenclature Codes which applies....
of four or five genera and about 90-120 species of flowering plant

Flowering plant

The flowering plants or angiosperms are the most widespread group of Embryophytes. The flowering plants and the gymnosperms are the only extant groups of Spermatophyte....
s. They are shrub

Shrub

A shrub or bush is a horticulture rather than strictly Botany category of woody plant, distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and lower height, usually less than 5-6 m tall....
s and small tree

TREE

TREE was a Boston hardcore punk band formed in the summer of 1990. They were active in the Boston music scene until disbanding in 2002....
s, with a cosmopolitan distribution

Cosmopolitan distribution

In biogeography, a biological category of living things is said to have cosmopolitan distribution if this category can be found almost anywhere around the world....
. A fifth genus sometimes accepted in the past (Notobuxus), has been shown by genetic studies to be included within Buxus (Balthazar et al., 2000).

The family is recognised by most taxonomists, and is sometimes known as the box

Buxus

Buxus is a genus of about 70 species in the family Buxaceae. Common names include box or boxwood .The boxes are native to western and southern Europe, southwest, southern and eastern Asia, Africa, Madagascar, northernmost South America, Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean, with the majority of species tropical...
family. However, its placement and circumscription has varied; some taxonomists treat Styloceras
Styloceras

Styloceras is a genus of plant in family Buxaceae. It contains the following species :* Styloceras kunthianum, Antoine Laurent de Jussieu...
in its own family Stylocerataceae, and others have included Simmondsia
Jojoba

Jojoba , pronounced "ho-ho-b?", is a shrub native to the Sonoran and Mojave Desert deserts of Arizona, California, and Mexico. It is the sole species of the family Simmondsiaceae, and sometimes placed in the box family, Buxaceae....
(usually placed in its own family Simmondsiaceae) in Buxaceae.

The APG II system

APG II system

A modern list of systems of plant taxonomy, the APG II system of plant classification was published in 2003 by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group, APG, in...
of 2003 recognises the family, but in a new circumscription in that it includes the genus Didymeles
Didymeles

Didymeles is a genus of flowering plants. It is variously treated in the family Buxaceae, or as the only genus of the family Didymelaceae. The genus is native to Madagascar and the Comoro Islands and consists of two species of evergreen trees:...
(two species of evergreen trees from Madagascar).

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Encyclopedia

Buxaceae is a small family

Family (biology)

Flowering plant

The flowering plants or angiosperms are the most widespread group of Embryophytes. The flowering plants and the gymnosperms are the only extant groups of Spermatophyte....
s. They are shrub

Shrub

TREE

TREE was a Boston hardcore punk band formed in the summer of 1990. They were active in the Boston music scene until disbanding in 2002....
s, with a cosmopolitan distribution

Cosmopolitan distribution

Buxus

APG II system

Didymelaceae

Didymelaceae is a family of flowering plants. The family has been recognised by a fair number of taxonomists, at least over the past few decades....
, as an optional segregate

Segregate (taxonomy)

In Alpha taxonomy, a segregate, or a segregate taxon is created when a taxon is split off, from another taxon. This other taxon will be better known, usually bigger, and will continue to exist, even after the segregate taxon has been split off....
. This represents a slight change from the APG system

APG system

A modern list of systems of plant taxonomy, the APG system of plant classification was published in 1998 by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group. The system is unusual in being based, not on total evidence, but on the cladistics analysis of the DNA sequences of three genes, two chloroplast genes and one gene coding for ribosomes....
of 1998, which firmly recognised both families as separate. In both APG and APG II the family Buxaceae is unplaced as to order and left among the basal lineages of the eudicots

Eudicots

Eudicots and Eudicotyledons are terms introduced by Doyle & Hotton to refer to a group of flowering plants that had been called "tricolpates" or "non-Magnoliid dicots" by previous authors....
. The suggests instating the order Buxales

Buxales

Buxales is a botanical name at the rank of order.Under the APG II system, Buxaceae is a family unplaced as to order in the eudicots. This family may optionally include the genus Didymeles, which in Cronquist system was given its own family and order, placed in subclass Hamamelidae....
for this family and the family Didymelaceae.