Phrymaceae, also known as the lopseed family, is a small family of flowering plants in the order Lamiales. It has a nearly cosmopolitan distribution, but is concentrated in two centers of diversity, one in Australia, the other in western North America. Members of this family occur in diverse habitats, including deserts, river banks and mountains.

Phrymaceae is a family of mostly herbs and a few subshrubs, bearing tubular, bilaterally symmetric flowers. They can be annuals or perennials. They are known horticulturally as "Mimulus" and were formerly placed in the genus Mimulus when it was defined broadly to include about 150 species. Mimulus, as a botanical name, rather than a common name or horticultural name, now represents a genus of only seven species. Most of its former species have been transferred to Diplacus or Erythranthe.

Within the order Lamiales, Phrymaceae is a member of an unnamed clade of five families. This clade has the topology of a phylogenetic grade and can therefore be represented as {Mazaceae [Phrymaceae (Paulowniaceae <Orobanchaceae + Lamiaceae>)]}. Two of these families, Mazaceae and Rehmanniaceae are not part of the APG III system. They were not formally validated until 2011.

The composition of Phrymaceae and the delimitation of genera changed radically from 2002 to 2012 as a result of molecular phylogenetic studies. Previously, Phrymaceae had been monotypic with Phryma leptostachya as its only species. It was limited in geographic range to eastern North America and eastern China. Phryma had been previously placed by Cronquist in Verbenaceae. Research on phylogenetic relationships revealed that several genera, traditionally included in Scrophulariaceae, were actually more closely related to Phryma than to Scrophularia. These genera became part of an expanded Phrymaceae. Mazus and Lancea were included in Phrymaceae for a short time before further studies indicated that they, along with Dodartia should be segregated as a new family, Mazaceae.

As currently understood, Phrymaceae consists of about 210 species in 13 genera. One of these includes the large genus Diplacus, while the other includes the other large genus, Erythranthe.

Estimates of the number of species in Phrymaceae have varied widely because of a lack of clear differences between species in certain genera, especially Diplacus and Erythranthe. When these two genera have been treated as segregates of Mimulus, the number of species assigned to Mimulus sensu lato has ranged from about 90 to about 150. A 2008 paper indicates that the actual number of species is well over 150. The family has often been called "Phrymataceae", even in modern times, but the correct name for the family is Phrymaceae. Mimulus and its relatives were usually placed in some version of Scrophulariaceae that was much larger than the currently accepted circumscription of that family.

In 2002, a molecular phylogenetic study showed that Phryma formed a strongly supported clade with Mimulus and its various relatives. Chloroplast DNA showed Phryma to be embedded within a broadly defined Mimulus, but this result was not strongly supported, and was contradicted by data from the ITS and ETS regions of the nuclear genome. In that treatment, it was suggested that Mimulus and its relatives (8 genera) might be transferred from Scrophulariaceae to Phrymaceae. It was also suggested that 11 other genera in Scrophulariaceae might be transferred in the same way. The 11 "additional genera" were Dodartia, Mazus, Lancea, Bythophyton, Encopella, Hemianthus, Micranthemum, Bryodes, Dintera, Psammetes, and Mimulicalyx. They now constitute the related family Mazaceae. This hypothesis has never been tested by molecular phylogenetics.

Hemianthus is so similar to Micranthemum that its recognition as a separate genus is doubtful. a placement accepted by Plants of the World Online, which also accepts the monospecific genus Mimulicalyx, producing a total of 15 genera.

  • Cyrtandromoea
  • Diplacus
  • Elacholoma (the stigma lobes are relatively long and are receptive over most of their length)
  • Erythranthe
  • Glossostigma (with three or four lobes in the calyx instead five; contains one large and one vestigial stigma lobe)
  • Hemichaena
  • Leucocarpus
  • Microcarpaea
  • Mimetanthe
  • Mimulicalyx
  • Mimulus
  • Peplidium (contains one large and one vestigial stigma lobe)
  • Phryma
  • Thyridia
  • Uvedalia

References

  • Distribution map
  • Mimulus as a model system
  • Mimulus as a model system
  • classification scheme for extant flowering plants
  • Lamiales relationships (pdf)
  • Beardsley et alii.2002. AJB
  • Beardsley et alii.2004. AJB
  • Phrymaceae
  • Phrymaceae (page 520)
  • Lamiales