Fabales
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
clade:	Angiosperms
clade:	Eudicots
clade:	Rosids
clade:	Eurosids I
Order:	Fabales Bromhead
Families
Fabaceae (legumes) Quillajaceae Polygalaceae (milkwort family) Surianaceae

Desmodium gangeticum

Fabales is an order of flowering plants. It is included in the rosid group of the eudicots in the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group II classification system. In the APG II circumscription this order includes the families Fabaceae or legumes (including the subfamilies Caesalpinioideae, Mimosoideae, and Faboideae), Quillajaceae, Polygalaceae or milkworts (including the families Diclidantheraceae, Moutabeaceae, and Xanthophyllaceae), and Surianaceae. Under the Cronquist system and some other plant classification systems, the order Fabales contains only the family Fabaceae. The other families treated in the Fabales by the APG II classification were placed in separate orders by Cronquist, the Polygalaceae within its own order, the Polygalales, and the Quillajaceae and Surianaceae within the Rosales.

The Fabaceae, as the third largest plant family in the world, contains most of the diversity of the Fabales, the other families making up a comparatively small portion of the order's diversity. Research in the order is largely focused on the Fabaceae, due in part to its great biological diversity, and to its importance as food plants. The Polygalaceae is fairly well researched among plant families, in part due to the large diversity of the genus Polygala, and also due to members of the family, like the Fabaceae, being food plants for various Lepidoptera (butterfly and moth) species.^[1][2] While taxonomists using molecular phylogenetic techniques find strong support for the order, there remain questions about the morphological relationships of the Quillajaceae and Surianaceae to the rest of the order, due in part to limited research on these families.^[3]

Distribution[link]

The Fabales are a cosmopolitan order of plants, except that only the subfamily Papilionoideae (Faboideae) of the Fabaceae are well dispersed throughout the northern part of the North Temperate Zone.^[4]

Gallery[link]

• Lathyrus tuberosa (Guixa).jpg

  Tuberous pea (Lathyrus tuberosus) of the Fabaceae

• 

  Soap bark tree (Quillaja saponaria) of the Quillajaceae

• 

  Milkwort (Polygala myrtifolia) of the Polygalaceae

• 

  Milkwort (Polygala elongata) of the Polygalaceae

• 

  Bay cedar (Suriana maritima of the Surianaceae

References[link]

1. ^ Janz, N; S Nylin (1998). "Butterflies and plants: A phylogenetic study". Evolution (Society for the Study of Evolution) 52 (2): 486–502. DOI:10.2307/2411084. JSTOR 2411084. 
2. ^ DeVries, PJ; AI Chacon (1992). "Toward a better understanding of host use and biodiversity in riodinid butterflies". Journal of Research on the Lepidoptera 31 (1–2): 103–126. 
3. ^ Morgan, DR; Soltis, DE, Robertson KR (July 1994). "Systematic and evolutionary implications of rbcL sequence variation in Rosaceae". American Journal of Botany (Botanical Society of America) 81 (7): 890–903. DOI:10.2307/2445770. JSTOR 2445770. 
4. ^ Stevens, PF (7 May 2006). "Angiosperm Phylogeny Website". Missouri Botanical Garden. http://www.mobot.org/MOBOT/research/APweb/. Retrieved 2006-11-20. 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Fabales

Wikispecies has information related to: Fabales