An Updated Phylogenetic Classification of the Flowering Plants

This update of my classification of the flowering plants, or Angiospermae, is based upon about 800 pertinent books, monographs, and other botanical papers published since my last synopsis appeared in the Nordic Journal of Science in 1983. Also I have narrowed my family- and ordinal-gap concepts to bring acceptance of family and ordinal limits more in line with those of current taxonomists. This new information and the shift in my phylogenetic philosophy have caused significant changes in my interpretation of relationships and numbers and content of taxa. Also the ending "-anae" has been accepted for superorders in place in the traditional but inappropriate" -iflorae." A new phyletic "shrub" replaces earlier versions, and attempts to indicate relationships among the superorders, orders, and suborders. One table includes a statistical summary of flowering-plant taxa: ca. 235,000 species of 12,615 genera, 440 families, and 711 subfamilies and undivided families in 28 superorders, 70 orders, and 7 5 suborders of Angiospermae. Three other tables summarize the indigenous distribution of the families and subfamilies of Angiospermae about the world.