[Taxacom] Subclass Asteridae (new taxa and new questions)

[Kenneth Kinman]

Dear All, 
      I am still debating whether or not my Subclass
Asteridae should be more inclusive. I have received no comments so far
either for or against the idea of possibly also including Cornales
and/or the Ericalean Orders. 
       Although I am still recognizing the same content
(euasterids) for Subclass Asteridae, I am making a few changes. Within
the past two weeks, the APG website seems to have begun to formally
combine some "incertae sedis" families into three additional Orders for
the euasterids:  Escalloniales, Bruniales, and Paracryphiales. I am now
formally adding the first two to my Subclass Asteridae, but NOT an Order
Paracryphiales. It is not only monotypic and very small (Paracryphiaceae
only), but I believe the same phylogeny is better reflected by placing
this family as the basal family within Order Dipsacales. And if it
turned out that an Order Paracryphiales made Dipsacales paraphyletic,
I'm sure APG would be putting Paracryphiaceae in Dipsacales anyway.
     
      I have also decided that dumping Campanulales into a very
large Asterales was not a good idea, so I am now recognizing a separate
Order Campanulales. Once I made this change, I realized that it was also
nice to actually have an Order Campanulales in the "campanulid" clade.
  :-)    
      Even more importantly, also note that I am now recoding
Aquifoliales as the basal sister group of the "lamiid" clade (rather
than of the "campanulid" clade). This is based on molecular data, rather
than morphological data, although I suspect morphological data will be
found to support this new relationship.   In this regard, it is
extremely interesting that Takhtajan (1997) proposed a close
relationship between Aquifoliaceae and Icacinaceae, both of which now
seem to be basal "lamiids". Makes me wonder if Icacinaceae is closer to
Aquifoliales or to Garryales (or split off as part of a clade in between
them).           
      So below is my revised classification of Asteridae. I
am still open to arguments in favor of adding Cornales and/or
"Superorder Ericales" as basal Asteridae. The presence of corolla tubes
in "Superorder Ericales" (except the basal Order Balsaminales) is
particularly interesting, but whether their corolla tubes are somehow
different (and arose "somewhat" independently) is something that must be
considered (even more so if Cornales is actually closer to euasterids).  


   Subclass Asteridae (euasterids)                
             1  Aquifoliales 
             B  Garryales
             C  Gentianales
             D  Solanales
             E  Boraginales
             F  Lamiales
             2  Campanulales
             B  Asterales
             3  Escalloniales
             4  Bruniales
             5  Apiales
             6  Dipsacales     


            -------Cheers,  
                      Ken Kinman