(botany) A family of dicotyledonous plants in the order Caryophyllales distinguished by a syncarpous gynoecium, few, cyclic tepals and stamens, two sepals, and two to many ovules.
Portulacaceae
| Sci-Tech Dictionary: Portulacaceae |
(′pör·chə·lə′kās·ē′ē)
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| WordNet: Portulacaceae |
Note: click on a word meaning below to see its connections and related words.
The noun has one meaning:
Meaning #1:
family of usually succulent herbs; cosmopolitan in distribution especially in Americas
Synonyms: family Portulacaceae, purslane family
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Portulacaceae is a family of flowering plants, comprising about 20 genera with about 500 species, ranging from herbaceous plants to shrubs. The family has been recognised by most taxonomists, and is also known as the purslane family; it has a cosmopolitan distribution, with the highest diversity in semi-arid regions of the Southern Hemisphere in Africa, Australia, and South America, but with a few species also extending north into Arctic regions. The family is very similar to the Caryophyllaceae differing in the calyx which has only two sepals.
The APG II system (2003; unchanged from the APG system of 1998) assigns it to the order Caryophyllales in the clade core eudicots.
- Selected genera
- Calandrinia
- Calyptridium
- Cistanthe
- Claytonia
- Lewisia
- Montia
- Phemeranthus
- Portulaca
- Portulacaria
- Spraguea
- Talinopsis
- Talinum
References
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Portulacaceae |
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Wikispecies has information related to: Portulacaceae |
- Portulacaceae in L. Watson and M.J. Dallwitz (1992 onwards). The families of flowering plants
- Flora of North America: Portulacaceae
- Flora of China: Portulacaceae
- NCBI Taxonomy Browser
- links at CSDL
- Portulacaceae of Chile, by Chileflora
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| Portulaca |
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 | Sci-Tech Dictionary. McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms. Copyright © 2003, 1994, 1989, 1984, 1978, 1976, 1974 by McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| WordNet. WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. Read more |
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