PHYTOLACCACEAE (pokeweed family)
Three to 20
genera, 30–120 species, nearly worldwide, most diverse in tropical and
subtropical regions of the New World.
Traditionally,
the Phytolaccaceae have been
classified as consisting of five or six subfamilies (Nowicke,
1969) with 17–20 total genera. More recent taxonomic studies involving
morphological and anatomical characters (G. K. Brown and Varadarajan,
1985) and gene sequence data (Manhart and Rettig, 1994), have suggested that most of these genera are
not closely related to the three core members of the subfamily Phytolaccoideae (Phytolacca
and two small South American genera, Anisomeria
D. Don and Ercilla A. Juss.).
With the family circumscription restricted to this small group, the remaining
genera are relegated to up to five other families.
However, these studies are considered somewhat preliminary and further research
involving more intensive taxon sampling and more characters may result in
another reevaluation of familial limits.