Talk:Rosaceae

Old comments
It'd be better if the characteristic morphological traits of Rosaceae, e.g. the possession of a hypanthium, were described. S.R. Hinsley, http://www.malvaceae.info


 * Please do! - MPF 21:50, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Yeah, no kidding! Unfortunately I don't know enough about it to do so, but I was rather disappointed that there weren't really any "distinguishing characteristics" given of such a major family! - 4.252.5.36 05:16, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Lyonothamnus
Any idea where Lyonothamnus belongs? To its own tribe? Tom Radulovich 03:34, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Takhtajan's 1997 classification, which was the last major pre-molecular classification of plants, placed it in its own tribe and subfamily (he broke Rosaceae into 12(?) subfamilies, one of which has since been moved to Fabales). The cladogram at http://www.botany.utoronto.ca/faculty/dickinson/rosaceaeevolution/combinedtree.html places it as sister to the clade Maloideae+Prunoideae+Neillieae. I can't find any data to place it confidently in any particular grouping. It might be possible to do a metaanalysis on the sequences deposited in GenBank, but that would take quite a bit of effort, and the result is not necessarily superior to Dickinson's cladogram.

New Phylogeny Paper
There a new paper out on the phylogeny of Rosaceae - Phylogeny and classification of Rosaceae. Unfortunately it's behind a paywall, so I don't know what it says, but the abstract indicates that Dryadeae is promoted to subfamilial rank, and Maloideae and Amygdaloideae are sunk in Spiraeoideae. Lavateraguy (talk) 18:03, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
 * More comments on this below, since 2011 the correct name for the subfamily that includes the old Maloideae, Amygdaloideae, and Spiraeoideae, is Amygdaloideae. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 17:45, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Economic Importance
I don't know how to do a citation needed tag, but I'm a little skeptical about Rosaceae being the 3rd most important plant family. I realize there's no precise/well defined metric for "importance", but I would think Solanaceae would be #3 after Poaceae and Fabaceae. From Apple and Potato, global potato production is 315 million metric tons, and apple production is 64 million tonnes. I'd suspect that production figures for tomatoes and tobacco also far outclass anything in Rosaceae. Rosaceae does seem like a strong contender for #4 in family importance though. 192.104.39.2 (talk) 18:06, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * For Rosaceae, apart from apples, there's pears, medlars, peaches, apricots, plums, almonds, cherries, raspberries, blackberries, loquats, plus the use of roses in the perfume and cut flower industries. These will all add up. But, on the other hand, there are several solanaceous crops in addition to potatoes, tomatoes and tabacco. I suspect that you are right. I'll add the tag for you.
 * Perhaps Brassicaceae should also be added to the mix (mostly Brassicas), or Malvaceae (cotton, kenaf, cacao, cola, durian, etc) Lavateraguy (talk) 20:13, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I would have thought that, given the importance of the potato, that solanaceae would be the second most important family of angiosperms after the grass family. However, my main reason for this edit is that I saw the claim said "Citation needed". Well, it does say in Encyclopaedia Britannica that the rose family has produced a great variety of foods, but none that has been a stable food. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 21:21, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

I supppose the fact that none of the foods in rosaceae have been a staple food of any country would suggest that the economic importance of the family is not as great as that of solanaceae, as the potato has been a staple food in Ireland. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 10:15, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

What about rice? Or are there many families with different species that are commonly used. Also palm for palm oil?

I do understand the point about importance however, it's a fairly arbitrary measurement. Satyris410 (talk) 18:41, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Largest genera
"The largest genera are Sorbus, Crataegus and Cotoneaster". Did someone forget about Rubus? --195.130.92.43 (talk) 14:08, 27 October 2009 (UTC)>
 * That has been fixed. Nadiatalent (talk) 20:48, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Use of "showy"
Far be it from me to dispute the fact that flowers of the rose family are indeed frequently used for show, but worded as-is ("The flowers are generally showy"), the sentence is not very informative. How exactly is "showy" defined? When I hear the word "showy," I think of a diva who likes attention but presents a somewhat fake facade in order to get it. I'll admit, I haven't really got any great alternatives in mind at the moment, but I think just about anything would be better than leaving it as open-ended as it currently is. Cheers. Sleddog116 (talk) 19:11, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
 * All that I can say is that botanists often describe the flowers in that way, and consistency of the terminology would be a good thing. "Very visible" was offered as an alternative that I don't find very satisfactory, perhaps only because they are sometimes a bit submerged in the foliage, though it is certainly true that most Rosaceae don't hide their flowers. Rosaceae flowers generally fit some or all of the meanings of showy, such as flashy, impressive, gaudy. (There are exceptions, such as most raspberry flowers, but those are neither showy nor visible.) Nadiatalent (talk) 20:55, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, when I offered "very visible", that wasn't something I had my heart set on or anything; I just thought it would be better than what was there. The important thing here is that even though that may be how botanists describe the flowers, this article isn't written for botanists - it's written for laymen.  Might I suggest that we change it to "Botanists often describe flowers in the rose family as 'showy'"?  That's a little bit more specific, which is what I think we need here.  Do you agree? Sleddog116 (talk) 23:53, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I'll leave it to others to contribute opinions. As a botanist, I'm hopelessly biased. Nadiatalent (talk) 00:15, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I'll see if I can get a third opinion, then. Thanks.  Sleddog116 (talk) 00:37, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I've deleted the entire sentence. You can use "Botanists often describe flowers in the rose family as 'showy'", but you will need a citation for this.  I'm also coming from WP:3O but do not disregard this as a dismissable opinion because I am also contributing to consensus.Curb Chain (talk) 04:27, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Horticulturists often describe flowers as showy ("when to prune trees with showy flowers", "Showy Flowers Nursery", "Tulips have showy flowers", "Hibiscus is often grown for its showy flowers"), and it occurs in common names such as "Showy Gaillardia", "Showy Lady's Slipper". Nadiatalent (talk) 14:14, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I have no problem with your statement, Nadia, but as Curb Chain said - we'd definitely need a citation for that. If you are a horticulturalist, can you provide some horticultural resource that we can cite that describes these flowers as "showy".  If there is, there shouldn't be any problem because we can just describe the flowers the same way the source describes them.  (Even a print source like a field guide would probably be sufficient - we just need something we can use to verify the use of the term.)  Sleddog116 (talk) 15:02, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
 * See Lavateraguy (talk) 18:49, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

You, sir, have just won my vote of confidence. This is exactly the kind of source we were looking for - I'm still not particularly fond of leaving it as it was (because even that source doesn't really explain what is meant by "showy"), but it's certainly a starting point. Sleddog116 (talk) 01:13, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Addition: I found a couple of other sources (here and here) that might help. I'm going to attempt a bold edit here - anyone can feel free to revert it and bring it back here if you don't like it.  Sleddog116 (talk) 01:22, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Completed: Not as bold as I'd hoped. I threw out both of my sources because neither was particularly relevant. I'm beginning to understand Nadia's and Curb Chain's points of view - there really isn't a way (at least not one that can be cited) to definitively clarify "showy"; it just is what it is, I guess. I can't say I'm particularly happy (it's just nagging at the wordsmith in me), but I don't really know what else to do with it, so no sense beating a dead horse. Sleddog116 (talk) 01:37, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Names of subfamilies
The larger subfamily that includes the old Spiraeoideae, Amygdaloideae/Prunoideae, and Maloideae/Pyroideae is the subject of a change to the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants, and there will be an explicit example in the code about this case. The new code has been in force since July 2011, but the text isn't yet available in its final form (some earlier versions can be found in a set of publications, but it is probably easier to wait a bit longer). The distributor of the publication (Koeltz Scientific Books) says that it will appear in November 2012. In the meantime, there is some explanation at Amygdaloideae. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 17:50, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Medium sized
This article describes rosaceae as a medium sized family of angiosperms,but,given all the fruits that are members of this family,such as those listed in the article, I would have thought it a rather large family.Vorbee (talk) 11:33, 24 June 2016 (UTC)


 * About 4828 species in 104 genera. Compare with large families Poaceae, 11,554 species in 759 genera and Orchidaceae 27,801 species in 899 genera. Plant surfer  22:36, 24 June 2016 (UTC)
 * 11,554 species in 759 genera and Orchidaceae 27,801 species in 899 genera.--AlfaRocket (talk) 19:53, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

Pronunciation
Is it possible we could have the first sentence a IPA spelling of Roseceae?

Is it roze-AY-see-uh? roze-AY-see? ro-ZAY-see-uh? ro-zay-SEE-ay?

I've spent so much time thinking about it, it's stopped making any sense to me. Satyris410 (talk) 18:37, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

An IPA Satyris410 (talk) 18:37, 2 June 2019 (UTC)