Caesalpinioideae is a
botanical name at the rank of
subfamily, placed in the large family
Fabaceae or
Leguminosae. Its name is formed from the generic name Caesalpinia. It is known also as the peacock flower subfamily.[5] The Caesalpinioideae are mainly trees distributed in the moist
tropics, but include such temperate species as the honeylocust (Gleditsia triacanthos) and Kentucky coffeetree (Gymnocladus dioicus). It has the following clade-based definition:
Caesalpinioideae, as it was traditionally
circumscribed, was
paraphyletic. Several
molecular phylogenies in the early 2000s showed that the other two subfamilies of
Fabaceae (
Faboideae and
Mimosoideae) were both nested within Caesalpinioideae.[7][8][9][10] Consequently, the subfamilies of Fabaceae were reorganized to make them monophyletic.[6] Caesalpinioideae, as currently defined, contains the following subclades:[8]
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abBruneau A, Mercure M, Lewis GP, Herendeen PS (2008). "Phylogenetic patterns and diversification in the caesalpinioid legumes". Botany. 86 (7): 697–718.
doi:
10.1139/B08-058.