Calceolariaceae is a family of flowering plant

Flowering plant

The flowering plants , also known as Angiospermae or Magnoliophyta, are the most diverse group of land plants. Angiosperms are seed-producing plants like the gymnosperms and can be distinguished from the gymnosperms by a series of synapomorphies...

s in the order

Order (biology)

In scientific classification used in biology, the order is# a taxonomic rank used in the classification of organisms. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, family, genus, and species, with order fitting in between class and family...

 Lamiales

Lamiales

Lamiales is an order in the asterid group of dicotyledonous flowering plants. It includes approximately 11,000 species divided into about 20 families...

 that has been recently segregated from Scrophulariaceae

Scrophulariaceae

Scrophulariaceae, the figwort family, are a family of flowering plants. The plants are annual or perennial herbs with flowers with bilateral or rarely radial symmetry. Members of the Scrophulariaceae have a cosmopolitan distribution, with the majority found in temperate areas, including...

. The family includes three genera, Calceolaria

Calceolaria

Calceolaria L. , also called Lady's purse, Slipper flower and Pocketbook flower, or Slipperwort, is a genus of plants in the Calceolariaceae family, sometimes classified in Scrophulariaceae by some authors...

, Porodittia, and Jovellana. Recent molecular phylogenies that included Calceolaria have shown not only that this genus does not belong in Scrophulariaceae (or any of the numerous families recently segregated from Scrophulariaceae) but also that this genus is the sister clade

Clade

A clade is a group consisting of a species and all its descendants. In the terms of biological systematics, a clade is a single "branch" on the "tree of life". The idea that such a "natural group" of organisms should be grouped together and given a taxonomic name is central to biological...

 to the majority of the other families of the Lamiales. Morphological and chemical characters also support the separation of Calceolariaceae from Scrophulariaceae and other Lamiales. Some recent studies have supported a sister-group relationship between Calceolariaceae and Gesneriaceae

Gesneriaceae

Gesneriaceae is a family of flowering plants consisting of ca. 150 genera and ca. 3,200 species in the Old World and New World tropics and subtropics, with a very small number extending to temperate areas. Many species have colorful and showy flowers and are cultivated as ornamental plants.Most...

(Andersson 2006).