Mesangiospermae

Hornwort Ceratophyllum demersum, copyright Eyeweed.

Belongs within: Angiospermae.
Contains: Chloranthaceae, Magnoliidae, Monocotyledoneae, Ranunculales, Proteales, Buxanae, Gunneridae.

The Mesangiospermae were defined by Cantino et al. (2007) as the most inclusive crown clade including Platanus occidentalis but excluding Nymphaea odorata and Austrobaileya scandens; as such, it represents the clade of flowering plants excluding the basal ANITA grade. The clade is supported by molecular analyses, but reliable morphological synapomorphies have not yet been identified. The Mesangiospermae contains five well-supported clades—the monocotyledons, eudicotyledons, magnoliids, Chloranthaceae and Ceratophyllum—but relationships between these clades remain unsettled. Ceratophyllum, hornworts, is a cosmopolitan genus of aquatic plants bearing rings of forked leaves and lacking true roots.

The Eudicotyledoneae is the clade containing the majority of species previously grouped in flowering plant classifications as 'dicotyledons' (the characters uniting dicotyledons in the broad sense are now regarded as plesiomorphies of flowering plants as a whole). Eudicots are distinguished by the possession of tricolpate pollen grains; it is possible that the loss of oil cells in the mesophyll and the dry fruit wall also represents a synapomorphy of the clade (Cantino et al. 2007). Cantino et al. (2007) defined Eudicotyledoneae as the least inclusive clade containing Ranunculus, Platanus, Sabia, Trochodendron, Buxus and Helianthus.

<==Mesangiospermae [Ranales] CD07
    |--+--Chloranthaceae WM14
    |  `--Magnoliidae WM14
    `--+--Monocotyledoneae APG16
       `--+--Ceratophyllum Linnaeus 1753 KC01 [Ceratophyllaceae, Ceratophyllales APG16]
          |    |--C. demersum BL04
          |    |--C. furcatispinum CBH93
          |    `--C. submersum BL04
          `--Eudicotyledoneae (see below for synonymy) APG16
               |--Ranunculales SR07
               `--+--Proteales APG16
                  `--+--+--Buxanae APG16
                     |  `--Gunneridae SR07
                     `--Trochodendraceae [Trochodendrales] APG16
                          |--Tetracentron [Tetracentraceae, Tetracentroideae] CD07
                          |--Trochodendron [Trochodendroideae] CD07
                          |    `--T. aralioides Siebold & Zucc. 1838 CD07
                          `--Trochodendroides CBH93
                               |--T. arctica Z02
                               `--T. rhomboideus (Lesquereux) Berry 1922 CBH93

Eudicotyledoneae [Dilleniidae, Dillenianae, Ranunculanae, Ranunculidae, Sapindineae, Tricolpatae, Trochodendrineae] APG16

*Type species of generic name indicated

REFERENCES

[APG16] Angiosperm Phylogeny Group. 2016. An update of the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group classification for the orders and families of flowering plants: APG IV. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 181: 1–20.

[BL04] Barkman, T. J., S.-H. Lim, K. M. Salleh & J. Nais. 2004. Mitochondrial DNA sequences reveal the photosynthetic relatives of Rafflesia, the world’s largest flower. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 101 (3): 787–792.

[CD07] Cantino, P. D., J. A. Doyle, S. W. Graham, W. S. Judd, R. G. Olmstead, D. E. Soltis, P. S. Soltis & M. J. Donoghue. 2007. Towards a phylogenetic nomenclature of Tracheophyta. Taxon 56 (3): E1–E44.

[CBH93] Collinson, M. E., M. C. Boulter & P. L. Holmes. 1993. Magnoliophyta (‘Angiospermae’). In: Benton, M. J. (ed.) The Fossil Record 2 pp. 809–841. Chapman & Hall: London.

[KC01] Kirk, P. M., P. F. Cannon, J. C. David & J. A. Stalpers. 2001. Ainsworth & Bisby's Dictionary of the Fungi 9^th ed. CAB International: Wallingford (UK).

[SR07] Saarela, J. M., H. S. Rai, J. A. Doyle, P. K. Endress, S. Mathews, A. D. Marchant, B. G. Briggs & S. W. Graham. 2007. Hydatellaceae identified as a new branch near the base of the angiosperm phylogenetic tree. Nature 446: 312–315.

[WM14] Wickett, N. H., S. Mirarab, N. Nguyen, T. Warnow, E. Carpenter, N. Matasci, S. Ayyampalayam, M. S. Barker, J. G. Burleigh, M. A. Gitzendanner, B. R. Ruhfel, E. Wafula, J. P. Der, S. W. Graham, S. Mathews, M. Melkonian, D. E. Soltis, P. S. Soltis, N. W. Miles, C. J. Rothfels, L. Pokorny, A. J. Shaw, L. DeGeronimo, D. W. Stevenson, B. Surek, J. C. Villarreal, B. Roure, H. Philippe, C. W. dePamphilis, T. Chen, M. K. Deyholos, R. S. Baucom, T. M. Kutchan, M. M. Augustin, J. Wang, Y. Zhang, Z. Tian, Z. Yan, X. Wu, X. Sun, G. K.-S. Wong & J. Leebens-Mack. 2014. Phylotranscriptomic analysis of the origin and early diversification of land plants. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 111 (45): E4859–E4868.

[Z02] Zherikhin, V. V. 2002. Insect trace fossils. In: Rasnitsyn, A. P., & D. L. J. Quicke (eds) History of Insects pp. 303–324. Kluwer Academic Publishers: Dordrecht.

Last updated: 18 July 2021.