Herbs, shrubs, lianas or small trees, monoecious, dioecious or rarely polygamous.

Leaves
alternate or opposite, sometimes anisophyllous, petiolate or sessile; lamina simple or 3–5(−7)-
lobed, margin entire or dentate, usually with 3 subequal nerves from base reaching towards leaf-
apex; stipules usually present, lateral or often intrapetiolar and fused. Indumentum sometimes
with stinging hairs, but also frequently with stiff non-stinging hairs, which may be curled or
sharply hooked; cystoliths usually punctiform, elongated or linear in epidermal cells.
Inflorescences very varied, mostly pedunculate, lax or condensed racemes, often with flowers in
small cymose glomerules, or sessile and condensed cymes in leaf-axils, partial inflorescences
often subtended by involucral bracts, the inflorescence-axis sometimes flattened into a disk-
shaped, ± fleshy receptacle. Flowers minute, unisexual or rarely bisexual, actinomorphic or
(especially in female flowers) zygomorphic; perianth a single whorl of ± fused tepals or rarely
the female flowers naked, pedicel often articulated below perianth.

Preview
The Urticaceae /ɜːrtɪˈkeɪsiː/ are a family, the nettle family, of flowering plants. The family name
comes from the genus Urtica. The Urticaceae include a number of well-known and useful plants,
including nettles in the genus Urtica, ramie (Boehmeria nivea), māmaki (Pipturus albidus), and ajlai
(Debregeasia saeneb).
The family includes about 2625 species, grouped into 53 genera according to the database of
the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kewand Christenhusz and Byng (2016).[2] The largest genera
are Pilea (500 to 715 species), Elatostema (300 species), Urtica (80 species), and Cecropia (75
species). Cecropia contains many myrmecophytes.[3]
Urticaceae species can be found worldwide, apart from the polar regions.

Contents
  [hide] 

 1Description
 2Taxonomy
o 2.1Phylogeny
o 2.2Tribes and Genera
 3Diseases
 4Image gallery
 5References
 6Further reading
 7External links

Description[edit]
Urticaceae species can be shrubs (e.g. Pilea), lianas, herbs (e.g. Urtica, Parietaria), or, rarely, trees
(Dendrocnide, Cecropia). Their leaves are usually entire and bear stipules. Urticating (stinging) hairs
are often present. They have usually unisexual flowers and can be both monoecious or dioecious.
They are wind-pollinated. Most disperse their pollen when the stamens are mature and their
filaments straighten explosively, a peculiar and conspicuously specialised mechanism.

Taxonomy[edit]
Male and female flower of Urtica

The APG II system puts the Urticaceae in the order Rosales, while older systems consider them part
of the Urticales, along with Ulmaceae, Moraceae, and Cannabaceae. APG still considers "old"
Urticales a monophyletic group, but does not recognise it as an order on its own.

Phylogeny[edit]
Modern molecular phylogenetics suggest the following relationships[4][5] (see also [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]):

[show]

  

Urtica dioica (stinging nettle)

Scientific classification

Kingdom: Plantae

Clade: Angiosperms

Clade: Eudicots

Clade: Rosids
 Order: Rosales

Family: Urticaceae
Juss., 1789

The Cactaceae
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Author Nathaniel Lord Britton

Joseph Nelson Rose

Illustrator Mary Emily Eaton

H.A. Wood

Kako Morita

Country United States

Language English

Publisher The Carnegie institution of Washington

Publication date Between 1919 and 1923

Media type Monograph
 Nathaniel Lord Britton

Joseph Nelson Rose

The Cactaceae is a monograph on plants of the cactus family written by the American
botanists Nathaniel Lord Brittonand Joseph Nelson Rose and published in multiple volumes between
1919 and 1923. It was landmark study that extensively reorganized cactus taxonomy and is still
considered a cornerstone of the field.[1] It was illustrated with drawings and color plates principally by
the British botanical artist Mary Emily Eaton as well as with black-and-white photographs.

Contents
  [hide] 

 1History
 2Illustrations
 3References
 4External links

History[edit]
Watercolor of several Opuntiacactus species by Mary Emily Eaton for Britton and Rose's The Cactaceae, 1919
(vol. 1, plate XXXIV).

Nathaniel Lord Britton was a Columbia University geology and biology professor who left the
university in 1895 to become the founding director of the New York Botanical Garden. Much of his
own field work was done in the Caribbean. Joseph Nelson Rose was an authority on several plant
families, including parsley (Apiaceae) and cacti (Cactaceae). He had been a plant curator at the
Smithsonian since 1896, and while working there he made several field trips to Mexico, collecting
specimens for the Smithsonian and for Britton's newly founded New York Botanical Garden.
Together, Britton and Rose published many articles on the stonecrop family (Crassulaceae) before
embarking in 1904 on research leading towards The Cactaceae. With the support of Douglas T.
MacDougal, director of the Carnegie Institution for Science's Desert Botanical Laboratory, the
Carnegie Institution agreed to fund the project.[2] Rose took a leave of absence from the Smithsonian
to pursue it, and both Rose and Britton were named Carnegie Institution Research Associates in
1912, when more focused work on the project began.[2] Between 1912 and 1916 Rose and Britton did
extensive field work, collecting specimens and touring the botanical gardens and notable collections
of Europe, the Caribbean, and North, Central, and South America.[2]
In this period, cactus taxonomy was in a disorganized state with only a few very large and
heterogeneous genera.[3] Britton and Rose broke these old-style catch-all genera into smaller, more
defined genera, ultimately classifying 1255 species under 124 genera.[3] It has been argued that with
this first major overhaul of cactus genera, they ushered in an era of 'splitting' or liberalism in cactus
taxonomy, in contrast to the conservative 'lumping' approach that characterized their predecessors.[1]
Britton and Rose defined their genera by the characteristics of the cactus plants' vegetation, flowers,
and fruit, as well as by their geographic distribution.[3] They drew on their own and others' field work,
as well as on greenhouse studies and specimens in herbaria to describe species included in their
exhaustive study.[2] An important aspect of their work was their careful reexamination of existing type
specimens, many of which turned out to have been incorrectly identified.[2][4]
Britton and Rose published The Cactaceae in four volumes through the Carnegie Institution between
1919 and 1923. It "set new standards in cactus botany"[3] and has been called Britton's "magnum
opus".[5] Though it was considered definitive in its own day,[4] the taxonomy of Cactaceae has
remained problematic, due in part to difficulties in preserving type specimens of cactus. Several
taxonomic reorganizations have succeeded Britton and Rose's work, with the most recent major one
dating to 1984. (See Cactus entry for more details.) Despite this, the excellence of their work is
reflected in the fact that some 50 of the 79 genera they authored are still considered phylogenetically
sound, though some have been redefined.[1]
A black-and-white reprint of the second (1937) edition of The Cactaceae was published by Dover
Publications in 1963. In 2006, Daniel Schweich undertook a project to digitize the entire book, and all
four volumes can now be downloaded in full color.

Illustrations[edit]

Watercolor of three species of Cactaceae by Mary Emily Eaton for Britton and Rose's The Cactaceae, 1919
(vol. 1, plate III).

In 1911, the British illustrator Mary Emily Eaton moved to New York, where she was employed by
the New York Botanical Garden for two decades. The great majority of color plates in the four
volumes of The Cactaceae are by Eaton, with a handful by other artists such as H.A. Wood and
Kako Morita.[2] Eaton's compositions are striking and her watercolors are noted for their crispness
and accuracy of botanical detail. The color plates are supplemented by black-and-white line
drawings as well as by black-and-white photographs of cacti, ranging from long shots taken in the
field to close-up details.[2] One contemporary reviewer called The Cactaceae “the most sumptuous
botanical publication" since William Rickatson Dykes’ 1913 book The Genus Iris.[4]