Rosaceae

Rosaceae
Kingdom: Plantae Division: Magnoliophyta Class: Magnoliopsida (dicotyledons) Order: Rosales Family: Rosaceae

Synonyms and common names

Rose family

Children

Rosaceae is divided into four subfamilies, mainly on the basis of how the fruit develops:

• Subfamily Rosoideae: Many small fruits, each of which is an achene[?] or drupelet, and often the fleshy part of the fruit (e.g. strawberry) is the hypanthium or the stalk bearing the carpels.
• Subfamily Spiraeoideae: A non-fleshy fruit consisting of five capsules.
• Subfamily Maloideae: Five capsules (called "cores") in a fleshy endocarp, surrounded by the ripened stem tissue. This structure is called a "pome". Apple, pear, hawthorn.
• Subfamily Amygdaloideae (or Prunoideae): A single drupe with a seam, two veins next to the seam, and one vein opposite the seam. Peach, almond, cherry.

The rose is a rose
and was always a rose;
But the theory now goes
That the apple's a rose,
And the pear is, and so's
The plum, I suppose.
You, my love, are a rose,
but were always a rose.

- Robert Frost, "The Rose Family"

References

http://www.life.uiuc.edu/plantbio/260/Rosaceae/Rosehome.html as of 2002-05-29