Takhtajan (1966) within superorder Lilianae and by Dahlgren (1985) in its own superorder Zingiberiflorae. In contrast the Cronquist system retained Scitamineae as the name for this order with eight families, but organised the order in the subclass Zingiberidae of the class Liliopsida (monocotyledons). Modern era Using molecular phylogenetics, which was first applied to the order in 1993, the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (APG) system (1998), (which generally followed Dahlgren, but with less divisions) confirmed the position of Zingiberales as a monophyletic order within the monocots, placing it in the commelinoid clade, as sister group to Commelinales, which Dahlgren had treated within a separate superorder. This was an ordinal system that did not examine subordinal structure. The 2003 revision (APG II) changed commelinoid to commelinid, but not the relationships, and this remained unchanged in the subsequent 2009 APG III system and 2016 APG IV system without addressing interfamilial relationships. Subdivision The order, which now has more than 2,600 species, distributed in 68 genera over eight families, has been subdivided from early times. In the Bentham & Hooker system (1883), their Ordo Scitamineae had four tribes: Zingibereae, Maranteae, Canneae, and Museae. These have become progressively divided to form the modern phyletic classification into the following monophyletic families: Zingiberaceae (gingers), Musaceae (bananas), Heliconiaceae (heliconias), Strelitziaceae (bird-of-paradise), Costaceae (spiral gingers), Cannaceae (canna lilies), Marantaceae (prayer plants), and Lowiaceae (Orchidantha). The APG II system (2003) provided a classification of families for the first time, retaining Kress's eight families. Families (genera/species) order Zingiberales Griseb. family Cannaceae Juss. (1/10 Canna cannas) family Costaceae Nakai (7/143 e.g. Costus spiral gingers) family Heliconiaceae Vines (1/194 Heliconia heliconias) family Lowiaceae Ridl. (1/18 Orchidantha) family Marantaceae R.Br. (29/570 e.g. Maranta prayer plants) family Musaceae Juss. (3/91 e.g. Musa bananas) family Strelitziaceae Hutch. (3/7 e.g. Strelitzia birds of paradise) family Zingiberaceae Martinov (50/1,600 e.g. Zingiber gingers) Based on morphology alone, the Zingiberales have been considered to form two main groups, each with four families, utilising the number of fertile stamens; Banana-families Musaceae, Strelitziaceae, Lowiaceae, Heliconiaceae. A paraphyletic basal assemblage with 5 or (rarely) 6 fertile stamens at maturity, arranged in as trimerous inner and outer whorls. In those with five stamina, the sixth may regress and be absent (Strelitziaceae and Lowiaceae, some Musaceae) or develop as an infertile staminode (Heliconiaceae, some Musaceae). Petals and stamens are often fused at the base to form a floral tube. These are known as the banana-families or