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November 2, 2005 : Abutilon 'Nabob'
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Keywords: Malvaceae | Abutilon 'Nabob'
Darrell (aka “dweeb” on Flickr) of the University of California, Davis, supplied this photograph of a deep-red abutilon via the Botany Photo of the Day Flickr Group Pool (original Flickr post). Thanks, Darrell – much appreciated!
A search of Google images reveals a diversity of floral morphology and colour within Abutilon that reflects its popularity in horticulture, particularly indoors.
Abutilon is a “traditional” member of the mallow family, Malvaceae, along with other plants such as cotton, okra and hollyhocks. Recent studies, however, support a notion of a much larger Malvaceae that includes the previously separated families Tiliaceae (the lindens), Sterculiaceae (the cocoa family) and Bombacaceae (the silk-cotton tree family, which includes baobabs). For an excellent resource on the changes, check out Malvaceae Info.
Photography / conservation resource link: Images for Conservation Fund – “Conservation of wildlife through sustainable development using the power of photography while integrating art, education and natural history.” via Nature Photographer Online Magazine's Nature Photography Supports Conservation.
Posted by Daniel Mosquin at November 2, 2005 12:00 AM
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Posted by: Alex Jablanczy at November 2, 2007 4:54 AM
Alex,
I would guess that the next on up that is typically used would be a suborder rather then a "superfamily."
In most cases, "families" were originally based on grouping plants by morphology, mainly flower morphology. However, technological advances now allow more and more genetic and biochemical evidence to be included in taxonomy.
One could argue that some families and genera exist simply because of a easily recognized dichotomy, be it morphological, geographic, physiological etc. that made for a convenient breaking point between two groups of related species. Add some genetic or biochemical evidence into the debate, however, and it may turn out that the easy dividing line based on appearances may not really be sufficient evidence to justify the splitting of the two perceived groups into different taxon.
I suppose it gets into the philosophy of Taxonomy as well. Originally, it was just a filing system. Now, it is viewed as something of a "site map" or family tree of evolution.
Take for instance Veronica and Hebe. Hebe was separated out from Veronica based on Hebe being evergreen. It was an easy place to divide Veronica. Last I'd heard; however, Hebe has been folded back into Veronica.
Posted by: Denis at May 10, 2008 8:27 PM
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Botany Photo of the Day is a project of the UBC Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research, located in Vancouver, British Columbia Canada. UBC BGCPR is a department of the Faculty of Land and Food Systems within The University of British Columbia.
It seems to me if a family is expanded by several added on families then it should no longer be called a family but a superfamily or an order or some other level of taxonomic classification.