The straw that broke Malpighiales' back

[Ken Kinman]

I think overall the ordinal classification of APG is pretty good.  Among monocots I only trimmed back their Poales and Asparagales, which revived some well-known Orders like Bromeliales, Iridales, etc.
      What really worries me about their huge Malpighiales is that I have severe doubts about its holophyly (strict monophyly).  If it were even slightly paraphyletic, it wouldn't worry me much, but I believe it will turn out to be either highly paraphyletic or worse yet polyphyletic!  It seems to me splitting it is a "win-win" situation, both in the size of the taxa and avoiding polyphyly.
      I thought the note at the Angiosperm Phylogeny Website (about Cymothoe feeding just on "Malpighiales" sensu lato) was interesting, so I checked on this a little.  Actually they seem to concentrate on families which I listed in Violales.  Other occurrences seem pretty scattered (at least one in what I call Hypericales, and a couple in the asterid order Lamiales).  Perhaps there are other scattered occurrences, but Cymothoe seems to really prefer hosts in Order Violales.
             ------ Cheers,
                         Ken
P.S.  Is anyone in favor of splitting Theales out of APG's "Ericalean" Order?  I haven't decided on that one yet, but it looks a little suspicious to me (although less so than their "Malpighialean" grouping).