Asterids

Birgitta Bremer, The Bergius Foundation at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, Sweden

Published online: May 2005

DOI: 10.1038/npg.els.0003685

The informal angiosperm group asterids consists of 107 families and over 80 000 species. It is named after the genus Aster of the Asteraceae family. Today 10 orders, viz. Cornales, Ericales, Garryales, Gentianales, Lamiales, Solanales, Aquifoliales, Apiales, Asteriales, and Dipsacales, are included in the group.

Keywords: flowering plants; angiosperms; eudicots; systematics; phylogeny

Figure 1. Phylogenetic interrelationships of the asterid orders. (Redrawn from Bremer et al., 2002).
Figure 2. Illustration of a representative genus of the lamiids (A = Lamium album; B = L. purpureum) with characteristic opposite leaves, hypogynous flowers (with the fruit developing within or above the corolla), and stamen filaments fused with the corolla tube. (Illustration from: Lindman CAM (1922) Bilder ur Nordens flora. Wahlström & Widstrand, Stockholm.)
Figure 3. Illustration of a representative of the campanulids (Campanula rotundifolia) with characteristic alternate leaves and epigynous flowers (fruit developing below the corolla), and free stamen filaments. (Illustration from: Lindman CAM (1922) Bilder ur Nordens flora. Wahlström & Widstrand, Stockholm.)
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 Further Reading
    Albach DC, Soltis PS, Soltis DE and Olmstead RG (2001) Phylogenetic analysis of asterids based on sequences of four genes. Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 88(2): 163–212.
    Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (APG) (1998) An ordinal classification for the families of flowering plants. Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 85: 531–553.
    Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (APG II) (2003) An update of the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group classification for the orders and families of the flowering plants; APG II. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 141(4): 399–436.
    Bremer B, Bremer K, Heidari N et al. (2002) Phylogenetics of asterids based on 3 coding and 3 non-coding chloroplast DNA markers and the utility of non-coding DNA at higher taxonomic levels. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 24: 273–300.
    Bremer K, Backlund A, Sennblad B et al. (2001) A phylogenetic analysis of 100+ genera and 50+ families of euasterids based on morphological and molecular data with notes on possible higher level morphological synapomorphies. Plant Systematics and Evolution 229: 137–169.
    ePath Bremer K, Bremer B and Thulin M (2003) Classification of flowering plants http://www.systbot.uu.se/classification/overview.html.
    book Judd WS, Campbell CS, Kellogg EA and Stevens PE (1999) Plant Systematics – A Phylogenetic Approach. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer.
    Olmstead RG, Bremer B, Scott KM and Palmer JD (1993) A parsimony analysis of the Asteridae sensu lato based on rbcL sequences. Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 80: 700–722.
    ePath Stevens PF (2003) Angiosperm Phylogeny Website. http://www.mobot.org/MOBOT/research/Apweb/.

Related Sub-Topics:

Diversification of Plants and Animals | Classification | Evolutionary Ecology | Biogeography and Macroecology | Plant Evolution | Plant Ecology
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Article Title: Asterids
 
How to Cite close
Bremer, Birgitta(May 2005) Asterids. In: eLS. John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Chichester. http://www.els.net [doi: 10.1038/npg.els.0003685]