XVI International Botanical Congess

All contemporary approaches to the flower evolution in centrosperms are reminiscent the typological ones sinking the use of floral characters in phylogenetics. Considering the evolution of the flower from the modern euanthous viewpoint the ancestral flower of the order can be reconstructed, which was possessed of variable members number, simple spiral perianth, multistaminate, not fascicled androecium and monocyclic multiovular gynoecium with both axile and parietal placentae. Four evolutionary equivalent clades based on specific floral synapomorphies are being treated as suborders: Cactineae (Cactaceae), Chenopodiineae (Amaranthaceae, Cnenopodiaceae), Caryophyllineae (Caryophyllaceae, Portulacaceae, Basellaceae, Didiereaceae, Stegnospermataceae) and Phytolaccineae (Aizoaceae, Molluginaceae, Phytolaccaceae, Nyctaginaceae).