Ericales
Ericales, rhododendron order of flowering plants, containing 22 families, 346 genera, and more than 12,000 species.
The relationships of the order are unclear. Together with Cornales, it is placed as a basal asterid in the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group IV (APG IV) botanical classification system (see angiosperm). The families included in it have previously been placed in several other orders, including the now defunct Theales. The circumscription of the order and its placement in the asterids are something of a surprise, although both are well supported by morphological and molecular data.
Morphologically, the order is rather generalized and unspecialized for the asterids. Most members have at least weakly fused petals and radially symmetric flowers, a superior 3- or 5-locular ovary, and 5 or 10 (sometimes more) stamens that are often borne free of the petals. The fruit is most often a capsule, and the seed coat is usually thin. Iridoids, distinctive chemicals perhaps involved in protection of the plant against herbivores, are scattered through the order.
Molecular studies suggest that there are eight family groupings in Ericales, plus one isolated family (Theaceae). The Ericaceae group contains Ericaceae, Clethraceae, and Cyrillaceae. The Balsaminaceae group contains Balsaminaceae, Marcgraviaceae, and Tetrameristaceae (including Pelliciera). The Polemoniaceae group contains Polemoniaceae and Fouquieriaceae. The Pentaphylacaceae group contains Pentaphylacaceae (including the former Ternstroemiaceae) and Sladeniaceae. The Styracaceae group contains Styracaceae, Symplocaceae, and Diapensiaceae. The Lecythidaceae group includes only Lecythidaceae. The Primulaceae group contains Primulaceae, Sapotaceae, and Ebenaceae. The Sarraceniaceae group contains Sarraceniaceae, Actinidiaceae, and Roridulaceae.
Ericaceae group
The Ericaceae group contains Ericaceae, Clethraceae, and Cyrillaceae, which are characterized by having a hollow style as well as by features of the endosperm, or seed reserve, and stem anatomy.
Ericaceae
Ericaceae, the heath family, is the largest family in Ericales, containing more than a third of all its genera (126) and species (about 4,000), with many new species still being discovered. Members of the family occur mainly in tropical montane, Mediterranean, and temperate to arctic climates. Major genera include Rhododendron (about 1,000 species, including the former genera Azalea, Ledum, Menziesia, and Tsusiophyllum), Erica (almost 800 species), Vaccinium (about 400 species), Gaultheria (235 species, including the former genus Pernettya), Leucopogon (about 230 species), and Cavendishia (155 species).
In Ericaceae the petals are usually fused, and the corolla is often urn-shaped or tubular; the 10 stamens often release their pollen by pores or short slits, and they sometimes have appendages on the anthers or the tops of the filaments. The pollen is often in groups of four grains, or tetrads. The ovary is usually divided into five parts.
Ericaceae prefer acidic habitats, well-lit conditions, and a temperate climate. Most of the family live in close association with fungi, which inhabit the roots. However, the fungal hyphae do not penetrate the cells. In fact, the fungi facilitate the plants’ uptake of nutrients, especially nitrogen, an element often in short supply in the acidic habitats that the family favours. The overall result is that Ericaceae, although a large family, has a rather distinct ecology. Some species, such as Monotropa (Indian pipe), lack chlorophyll and completely depend on their fungi for nutrients. These fungi are also associated with trees, and nutrients move from the trees to the ericaceous plant via the fungi. Different species of fungi are associated with different achlorophyllous Ericaceae, a much closer association than elsewhere in the family.
Many Ericaceae have xeromorphic leaves, which apparently evolved for life under conditions of limited water (or nutrient) availability. Erica in particular have leaves that are small and narrow, with a channel on the lower surface, while other genera have leaves that are thick and hard, with close parallel venation. Both groups are abundant in Mediterranean climates, and many species have starch-rich tubers or burls and resprout after fire. Many of the genera related to Vaccinium are lianas or epiphytes (which grow on other plants) in the montane tropics. Their leaves are often thick, and the base of the stem can be very swollen.
Ericaceae often have large and conspicuous flowers, and a variety of relationships with pollinators have been demonstrated. Rhododendron and some of its relatives have viscin threads, very fine structures that hold the pollen tetrads together in clumps. Large insects, and in the tropics birds and perhaps bats, are the main pollinators by dislocating strands of threads in which the pollen tetrads are entangled. Erica and its relatives have smaller flowers, but, even so, birds and a variety of insects (including flies in South Africa) are pollinators; some species of Erica are pollinated by wind, as are Empetrum (crowberry) and its relatives. Many of the large-flowered Vaccinium relatives are pollinated by birds. Less-common forms of pollination include buzz pollination (bees dislodge pollen by bugging), as in some species of Vaccinium, including Vaccinium oxycoccus (cranberry). Most species of Kalmia have the anthers held under tension, being released only when the pollinator lands, so pollination here is explosive.
Ericaceae with capsular fruits have wind-dispersed seeds, and wings or tails of various sorts on the seed may aid in this process. Fleshy-fruited Ericaceae are dispersed mostly by birds, sometimes by mammals, with the hard seeds being excreted by the animal. Most species of Gaultheria combine the two methods of dispersal, having a dry capsular fruit surrounded by succulent and brightly coloured sepals. Some Vaccinium relatives have seeds with a mucilaginous covering, and they may be dispersed more like mistletoe. These species also have green embryos and are either epiphytic or epilithic (growing on rocks).
In summary, there are perhaps four lines of ecological specialization in Ericaceae, which are to a remarkable extent mutually exclusive. About 1,300 species have xeromorphic leaves, about 1,500 species have fleshy fruits, about 900 species have pollen with viscin threads, and about 400 species are either epiphytic or epilithic.
Ericaceae are much valued in horticulture, especially in temperate regions, for their showy flowers. However, a number of species of Vaccinium, in particular, are cultivated for their fruits. A few (e.g., Rhododendron ponticum) are locally seriously invasive.
Clethraceae
Clethraceae contains two genera. Clethra, with 65 species, grows from East Asia to Malesia, in the southeastern United States, and from Mexico southward along the Andes; a single species grows on the Atlantic island of Madeira. All are woody deciduous to evergreen plants with spiral, often toothed leaves that tend to be clustered at the ends of branches. They have racemose inflorescences at the ends of the branchlets and rather small flowers. These flowers have only basally fused (or free) sepals and petals and 10 late-inverting stamens with distinctive arrow-shaped anthers that open by pores. The fruit has three compartments. Purdiea includes about 12 species native to the Caribbean, Central America, and northern South America. Its flowers are considerably larger and more showy than those of Clethra.
Cyrillaceae
Cyrillaceae is a small family of two genera of trees or shrubs that grow in the Caribbean region, from the southeastern United States to northern South America and the West Indies. Cyrillaceae have spirally arranged toothless leaves with short petioles, long-racemose inflorescences, and rather small flowers. The flowers appear to have separate petals, the anthers are arrow-shaped, the stigma is often three-lobed, and the fruit has three compartments. The number of species in Cyrilla has been disputed; some botanists recognize a single widespread and variable C. racemiflora. The genus Cliftonia is also monotypic.
Balsaminaceae group
The Balsaminaceae group members—Balsaminaceae, Marcgraviaceae, and Tetrameristaceae (including Pelliciera)—are distinct from the rest of the order, although they are highly variable in growth and appearance. All have cells with bundles of needle-shaped crystals of calcium oxalate and lack a nectary disc. They have a short style, and their petals do not form a tube. Marcgraviaceae and Tetrameristaceae have leaves that elongate while still folded in bud, and there are faint lines on the lower surface of the expanded leaf where the edges of the leaves are pressed against the surface.
Balsaminaceae
Balsaminaceae, the touch-me-not family, includes two genera and about 1,000 species of fleshy herbs. Hydrocera, with one species, is Indo-Malesian, while Impatiens (touch-me-not genus), with all the other species, grows throughout the family range, which is mostly Old World—mainly Africa (especially Madagascar) to the mountains of Southeast Asia. Balsaminaceae are rather fleshy herbs that have toothed leaves and strongly zygomorphic spurred flowers, with the five stamens closely arching over the ovary. The spur is a modified sepal, and the flower is held upside down. The stamens make a cap over the stigma and may get knocked off by the pollinators, usually bees. Nectar is secreted in the spur, and the showy flowers usually have three petal-like sepals and five petals; two pairs of petals are joined at their bases. The rather large seeds are thrown some distance when the capsule dehisces explosively, as it does when it is touched.
Marcgraviaceae
Marcgraviaceae are often lianas or epiphytes and are found only in the Neotropics. There are seven genera and about 130 species in the family, of which Marcgravia includes 60. The family has often rather thick leaves with indistinct venation and inflorescences with flower bracts that are modified as flask-shaped nectaries. The stamens are often quite numerous. The fruits, with many small seeds exposed on a fleshy, brightly coloured placenta, are distinctive.
Heterophylly (different leaf types on the same plant) is common in Marcgravia. The climbing form of the plant has small leaves without stalks. The leaves are arranged in two rows on the branches and are pressed against the trunk of the tree on which the plant is growing. Short adventitious (aerial) roots develop along these shoots and enable the plant to climb. The upper shoots, which bear pendulous flower clusters at their ends, have much larger stalked, spirally arranged leaves and lack the adventitious roots of the climbing stems. (Similar growth patterns occur in other climbers, including some Aracaeae.) The transition between shoot types is often abrupt, although the cause is unknown; it is thought that increasing light received by the shoots as they climb may be involved. Pollination in Marcgraviaceae is mostly by birds and bats, which take nectar from the modified bracts. In the simplest case a bract subtends each flower. In Marcgravia, however, the flower cluster is pendulous and umbellate—the flowers are on stalks that radiate from a common point, like an umbrella. The central flowers of the umbel are sterile, and their bracts are enlarged to form erect pitcherlike structures that are superficially similar to the insectivorous pitchers of Nepenthes, which hang below the outer ring of fertile flowers. Nevertheless, birds sometimes avoid brushing the stigma when taking nectar from these bracts, and self-pollination may occur. Birds and sometimes mammals eat the fleshy fruits of Marcgraviaceae.
Tetrameristaceae
Members of the three genera of Tetrameristaceae have glands on the inner surfaces of the sepals and only a single ovule in each part of the ovary. The flowers have only five stamens. Pelliciera rhizophorae are evergreen trees in mangrove vegetation on the Pacific or, rarely, Atlantic coast of Central America and northern South America. They have long pointed terminal buds, spirally arranged toothed leaves with asymmetrical bases and short stalks, and large flowers in the axils of leaves. The large sharply pointed single-seeded fruits are also distinctive. Until its affinity with Tetrameristaceae was recognized, Pelliciera had been its own family.
The other two genera of Tetrameristaceae are rather small woody plants. The three species of Tetramerista grow in west Malesia. The one species of Pentamerista grows in the Guiana Highlands of Venezuela. These genera have spiral short-stalked leaves with indistinct venation and marginal glands. Tetramerista has glistening dots on the inner surface of both calyx and corolla. Both genera have fleshy fruits, which are presumably dispersed by animals.
