Lamiales



The order Lamiales is a taxon in the asterid group of dicotyledonous flowering plants. It includes approximately 11,000 species divided up into about 10 families. Well-known members of this order include the lavender, the lilac, the olive, the jasmine, the ash tree, the teak, the snapdragon, and a number of table herbs such as mint, basil, and rosemary.

Characteristics
Species in this order typically have the following characteristics, although there are exceptions to all of them:


 * superior ovary composed of two fused carpels
 * five petals fused into a tube
 * bilaterally symmetrical, often bilabiate corollas
 * four (or fewer) fertile stamens

Taxonomic history
Lamiales formerly had a restricted circumscription (e.g., by Arthur Cronquist) that included the major families Lamiaceae (Labiatae), Verbenaceae, and Boraginaceae plus a few smaller families. Recent phylogenetic work has shown that Lamiales is polyphyletic with respect to order Scrophulariales and the two groups are now usually combined in a single order that also includes the former orders Hippuridales and Plantaginales. Lamiales has become the preferred name for this much larger combined group. The placement of Boraginaceae is unclear but phylogenetic work shows that this family does not belong in Lamiales.

Also, the circumscription of family Scrophulariaceae, formerly a paraphyletic group defined primarily by plesiomorphic characters and from within which numerous other families of the Lamiales were derived, has been radically altered to create a number of smaller, better-defined and putatively monophyletic families.