which occur on islands in the Pacific and insular South-East Asia, from New Zealand and the Marquesas to Borneo, and on Madagascar. Hedyosmum has separate male and female flowers. The male flowers are without bracts and have one stamen, in which the connective is not widened. The female flower is without bracts; the stigma is dry and covered in papillae. Female flowers have a 3-lobed calyx. The fruit, a drupe, has a kernel with a hard and woody shell. There are 43 species found in Latin America, including the Antilles, as well as one species found in Southeast Asia. Taxonomy The Chloranthaceae have been recognised as a family in most classifications but without clear relatives. Molecular systematics studies have shown that it is not closely related to any other family and is among the early-diverging lineages in the angiosperms. In particular, it is neither a eudicot nor a monocot. Fossils assigned to Chloranthaceae, or closely related to the family, are among the oldest angiosperms known. The APG II system (2003) left the family unplaced as to order, but the APG III system (2009) accepted Chloranthales, containing only this family. The cladogram below, from the APG IV system (2016), shows the Chloranthales in a trichotomy with the magnoliids and the monocot-Ceratophyllales-dicot clade. Earlier, the order was grouped with magnoliids, but studies in 2014 did not support this placement, leaving its phylogeny unclear. A 2021 study sequenced the Chloranthus genome and found Chloranthales as sister to magnoliids. A 2004 study based on comparisons of homologous DNA fragments indicated that both the family Chloranthaceae and its extant genera Ascarina, Chloranthus, Hedyosmum and Sarcandra are probably monophyletic, with Hedyosmum being the first to diverge from the rest, and Ascarina being the sister group of the clade consisting of Sarcandra and Chloranthus. , these four extant genera are recognized, and insights into their relationships are expressed in the tree below: The extinct genus Chloranthistemon also belongs to this family. Historical classifications The Cronquist system (1981) assigned the family to the order Piperales in subclass Magnoliidae in class Magnoliopsida [=dicotyledons] of division Magnoliophyta [=angiosperms]. The Thorne system (1992) placed it in the order Magnoliales, which was assigned to superorder Magnolianae in subclass Magnoliideae [=dicotyledons], in class Magnoliopsida [=angiosperms]. The Dahlgren system raised the family to be its own order Chloranthales, which was assigned to superorder Magnolianae in subclass Magnoliideae [=dicotyledons], in class Magnoliopsida [=angiosperms]. References External