Application:
• Reclassification of the figwort family using evidence from cladistics
Until recently, figworts were the 8th largest family of flowering plants (angiosperms), containing 275 different genera
- This was problematic as many of the figwort plants were too dissimilar in structure to function as a meaningful grouping
Taxonomists examined the chloroplast gene in figworts and decided to split the figwort species into five different clades
- Now less than half of the species remain in the figwort family – which is now the 36th largest among angiosperms
Reclassification of Figworts (Family Scrophulariaceae)
