Gunneraceae
Encyclopedia
Gunneraceae is the botanical name
Botanical name
A botanical name is a formal scientific name conforming to the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature and, if it concerns a plant cultigen, the additional cultivar and/or Group epithets must conform to the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants...

 for a family
Family (biology)
In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...

 of flowering plants. Such a family has been recognized by most taxonomists.

The APG II system
APG II system
The APG II system of plant classification is the second, now obsolete, version of a modern, mostly molecular-based, system of plant taxonomy that was published in April 2003 by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group. It was a revision of the first APG system, published in 1998, and was superseded in 2009...

, of 2003, also recognizes this family and assigns it to the order Gunnerales in the clade core eudicots. The family then consists of one or two genera, Gunnera
Gunnera
Gunnera is a genus of herbaceous flowering plants, some of them gigantic. The genus is the only member of the family Gunneraceae.The 40-50 species vary enormously in leaf size...

and, optionally, Myrothamnus
Myrothamnus
Myrothamnus is the botanical name of a genus of flowering plants, consisting of two species of small xerophytic shrubs, in the southern parts of tropical Africa and in Madagascar....

. The latter may also be segregated as a separate family, Myrothamnaceae
Myrothamnaceae
Myrothamnaceae is the botanical name for a family of flowering plants. Such a family has been recognized by most taxonomists, having been included in order Hamamelidales in the Cronquist system. The APG II system includes Myrothamnaceae in Gunneraceae but allows for the optional segregation of...

. This represents a change from the APG system
APG system
The APG system of plant classification is the first, now obsolete, version of a modern, mostly molecular-based, system of plant taxonomy that was published in 1998 by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group. It was superseded in 2003 by a revision, the APG II system, and then in 2009 by a further...

, of 1998, which firmly recognized two separate families, unplaced as to order. The APG III system
APG III system
The APG III system of flowering plant classification is the third version of a modern, mostly molecular-based, system of plant taxonomy...

recognizes the family Gunneraceae and places Myrothamnus in the separate family Myrothamnaceae; both families are placed in the order Gunnerales in the core eudicots.

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