Hippocastanaceae

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Hippocastanaceae

Hippocastanaceae is the name given to a small group of trees and shrubs, when this group is treated as a familiy. Its most widespread genus is Aesculus
Aesculus

The genus Aesculus, the buckeyes and Horse Chestnuts, comprises 13-19 species of woody trees and shrubs native to the temperate northern hemisphere, with 6 species native to North America and 7-13 species native to Eurasia; there are also several Hybrid ....
(the horse-chestnuts and buckeyes, syn. Pavia). However, the American genus Billia
Billia

Billia is a genus of two species of tree native to the Americas, from central Mexico to Ecuador. The wood is used in carpentry....
and the Chinese genus Handeliodendron
Handeliodendron

Handeliodendron consists of a single species of deciduous tree/shrub native to China, and is classified as rare....
are also sometimes included in this family.

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Encyclopedia

Sapindaceae

Sapindaceae, also known as the soapberry family, is a family of flowering plants in the order Sapindales. There are about 140-150 genera with 1400-2000 species, including maple, Aesculus and lychee....
, and some systems of plant taxonomy

List of systems of plant taxonomy

This list of systems of plant taxonomy presents ?taxonomic systems? used in plant classification.A wiktionary:taxonomic system is a coherent whole of alpha taxonomy judgements on circumscription and placement of the considered taxa....
include the members of the Hippocastanaceae, along with members of the Aceraceae, in an enlarged family Sapindaceae. Recent molecular phylogenetic

Molecular phylogeny

Molecular phylogenetics, also known as molecular systematics, is the use of the structure of molecules to gain information on an organism's evolutionary relationships....
research (Harrington et al. 2005) has shown that while both Aceraceae and Hippocastanaceae are monophyletic

Monophyly

In common cladistic usage, a monophyletic group is a clade, consisting of an ancestor and all its descendants. The term is synonymous with the uncommon term holophyly....
in themselves, their removal from Sapindaceae sensu lato would leave Sapindaceae sensu stricto as a paraphyletic

Paraphyly

In phylogenetics, a group of organisms is said to be paraphyletic if the group contains its most recent common ancestor Common descent but does not contain all the descendants of that ancestor....
group, particularly with reference to the genus Xanthoceras
Xanthoceras

Xanthoceras sorbifolium , the sole species in the genus Xanthoceras, is a flowering plant in the family Sapindaceae, native to northern China in the provinces of Gansu, Hebei, Henan, Liaoning, Nei Monggol, Ningxia, Shaanxi, and Shandong....
. Therefore it is now usually synonymized with subfamily Hippocastanoideae.