milkworts
Polygalaceae
The Polygalaceae or the milkwort family are made up of flowering plants in the order Fabales. They have a near-cosmopolitan range, with about 27 genera and ca. 900 known species of herbs, shrubs and trees. Over half of the species are in one genus, Polygala, the milkworts.
The family was first described in 1809 by Johann Hoffmansegg and Johann Link. In 1896, Robert Chodat split it into three tribes. A fourth tribe was split off from the tribe Polygaleae in 1992. Under the Cronquist classification system, Polygalaceae were treated in a separate order of their own, Polygalales. Currently, according to the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group, the family belongs in Fabales.
4 branches of this family, most-observed first
Polygaleae
tribePolygaleae
Xanthophylleae
tribeXanthophylleae
Moutabeae
tribeMoutabeae
Carpolobieae
tribeCarpolobieae
Where it lives
Recorded sightings
—
geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.
Drag the globe to turn it. Dots are where records exist, not a range map; darker means more records.
In the stacks
Searching the stacks…
Every page naming Polygalaceae in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
This page is assembled live from iNaturalist, GBIF, Wikipedia, the Source Library and the Internet Archive. It is not yet part of the hand-edited codex. iNaturalist taxon 61207.