Table 1

Sister taxa at the top ten most imbalanced nodes of flowering-plant phylogeny


Diverse clade
Less diverse clade



Node
Clade name
Geographical distribution
Clade name
Geographical distribution

1
Lamiales I (mints)
Cosmopolitan
Plocospermataceae
Central America
2
Poaceae (grasses)
Cosmopolitan
Ecdeiocoleaceae (tussocky cord rush)
Australia
3
Monocots
Cosmopolitan
Acoraceae (sweet flag)
Old World and North America
4
Asparagales (asparagus)
Cosmopolitan
Xeronemataceae
New Zealand and New Caledonia
5
Lamiales II (mints)
Cosmopolitan
Tetrachondraceae
New Zealand and Patagonia
6
Fabaceae (legumes)
Cosmopolitan
Surianaceae
Pan subtropical to tropical
7
Caryophyllales I (carnations)
Cosmopolitan
Asteropeiaceae and Physenaceae
Madagascar
8
Caryophyllales II (carnations)
Cosmopolitan
Stegnospermaceae
North and Central America
9
Ranunculales (buttercups)
Cosmopolitan
Eupteleaceae
East Asia
10
Cyperaceae and Juncaceae (sedges and rushes)
Cosmopolitan
Thurniaceae
North and South America

The common clade name or an example of a representative species is given in brackets after the formal name. Most of the diverse clades refer to a subset of the group noted (for example, monocots refers to all monocots except Acoraceae); clades annotated I or II refer to different subsets of the same larger clade (for more details see [8]).

Graham and Cronk Genome Biology 2004 5:236   doi:10.1186/gb-2004-5-8-236