Brassicales
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 Alliaria petiolata, family Brassicaceae
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The Brassicales are an order of flowering plants, belonging to the eurosids II group of dicotyledons under the APG II system. Brassicales sensu APG II includes families classified under Capparales in previous classifications. One character common to many members of the order is the production of glucosinolate (mustard oil) compounds. The APG II system includes the following families:
- Family Akaniaceae
- Family Bataceae (salt-tolerant shrubs from America and Australasia)
- Family Brassicaceae (mustard and cabbage family; includes Capparaceae)
- Family Caricaceae (papaya family)
- Family Gyrostemonaceae
- Family Koeberliniaceae
- Family Limnanthaceae (meadowfoam family)
- Family Moringaceae (thirteen species of trees from Africa and India)
- Family Pentadiplandraceae
- Family Resedaceae (mignonette family)
- Family Salvadoraceae
- Family Setchellanthaceae
- Family Tovariaceae
- Family Tropaeolaceae (nasturtium family)
Under the Cronquist system, the Brassicales were called the Capparales, and included among the Dilleniidae. The only families included were the Brassicaceae and Capparaceae, treated as separate families, and the Tovariaceae, Resedaceae, and Moringaceae. Other taxa now included here were placed in various different orders.
The circumscriptions of several families are in flux and no consensus has yet emerged. Several genera included in Capparaceae as traditionally circumscribed have proven to be more closely related to Brassicaceae (Hall et al. 2002), and because of this the two families were merged under Brassicaceae in the APG II system. Other references (e.g., Hall et al. 2004) continue to recognize Capparaceae but in a more restricted circumscription, either by including Cleome and related genera in Brassicaceae or by recognizing them in the segregate family Cleomaceae. The relationships of several other genera remain unresolved.
References
- Hall, J. C., K. J. Sytsma and H. H. Iltis. 2002. Phylogeny of Capparaceae and Brassicaceae based on chloroplast sequence data. American Journal of Botany 89: 1826-1842 (abstract here).
- Hall, J. C., H. H. Iltis and K. J. Sytsma. 2004. Molecular phylogenetics of core Brassicales, placement of orphan genera Emblingia, Forchhammeria, Tirania, and character evolution. Systematic Botany 29: 654-669 (abstract here).
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