Despite its size and the somewhat doubtful mutual relationships, this family is rather uniform and easily recognizable.
Most are herbaceousannuals orperennials, dying off above ground each year. A few species are shrubs or small trees, such as someAcanthophyllum species.[7] Most plants are non-succulent; i.e. having no fleshy stems or leaves. The nodes on the stem are swollen. The leaves are almost always opposite,[8] rarelywhorled. The blades are entire, petiolate, and often stipulate. Thesestipules are not sheath-forming.
The bisexualflowers are terminal, blooming singly or branched or forked incymes. The inflorescence is usuallydichasial at least in the lower parts, which means that in the axil of each peduncle (primary flower stalk) of the terminal flower in the cyme, two new single-flower branches sprout up on each side of and below the first flower.[7] If the terminal flowers are absent, then this can lead tomonochasia, i.e. a monoparous cyme with a single flower on each axis of theinflorescence. In the extreme, this leads to a single flower, such as inGithago orArenaria.[7] The flowers are regular and mostly with fivepetals and fivesepals, but sometimes with four petals.[8] The sepals may be free from one another or united. The petals may be entire, fringed or deeply cleft. The calyx may be cylindrically inflated, as inSilene. Thestamens number five or 10 (or more rarely four or eight),[8] and are mostly isomerous with the perianth. The superior gynoecium has two to fivecarpels (members of a compound pistil) and is syncarpous; i.e. with these carpels united in a compound ovary. Thisovary has one chamber inside the ovary. Thefruit may be autricle with a single seed or acapsule containing several seeds.[8]
Currently,Amaranthaceae and Caryophyllaceae are sister groups and considered closely related.
Formerly, Caryophyllaceae were considered the sister family to all of the remaining members of the suborderCaryophyllineae because they haveanthocyanins, and notbetalain pigments. However,cladistic analyses indicate Caryophyllaceae evolved from ancestors that contained betalain, reinforcing betalain as an accuratesynapomorphy of the suborder.[9]
This family is traditionally divided in three subfamilies:
The last, however, are abasalgrade of rather primitive members of this family, not closely related, but simply retaining manyplesiomorphic traits. Instead of a subfamily, most ought to be treated as generaincertae sedis, butCorrigiola andTelephium might warrant recognition asCorrigioleae. The Alsinoideae, on the other hand, seem to form two distinctclades, perhaps less some misplaced genera. Finally, the Silenoideae appearmonophyletic at least for the most part, if some of the taxa misplaced in Alsinoideae are moved there; it may be that the nameCaryophylloideae would apply for the revised delimitation.[10]
However,hybridization between many members of this family is rampant—particularly in the Silenoideae/Caryophylloideae—and some of thelineages of descent have been found to be highly complicated and do not readily yield tocladistic analysis.[11]
^Walter S. Judd; Christopher S. Campbell; Elizabeth A. Kellogg; Peter F. Stevens; Michael J. Donoghue (2008).Plant Systematics: a Phylogenetic Approach (3rd ed.). Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates.ISBN978-0-87893-407-2.
^P. F. Stevens (9 June 2008)."Caryophyllaceae".Angiosperm Phylogeny Website. Retrieved6 August 2008.
