Myrsinaceae used to be split apart from Primulaceae on the grounds that fruits in Myrsinaceae are usually fleshy berries but Primulaceae usually has capsules. However, the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group now includes Myrsinaceae within Primulaceae. The old Myrsinaceae included only woody taxa, but the immediate clade with these taxa was found to include herbaceous genera including Anagallis, Coris & Cyclamen. In fact the molecular evidence has resulted in Primulaceae, in the order Ericales, being broken into four subfamilies: Maesoideae, Theophrastoideae (Samoleae & Theophrasteae), Primuloideae and Myrsinoideae.
The broad Primulaceae family usually have spirally arranged leaves sometimes with dark dots or lines. Their flowers are sympetalous with stamens borne opposite to the petals and an ovary with several to many ovules and free-central placentation. The stigma is not lobed.
Maesoideae are woody plants that can be recognised by their serrate leaves that often lack much venation, even when dry, and which have well-developed and conspicuous canals in the leaf blades, sepals and petals. There are no stipules. The small, fused corollas are surrounded by bracts. The stamens are opposite the petals. The ovary is semi-inferior that forms a frupe in fruit. Plants from Maesoideae are found in Africa and South East Asia.
Theophrastoideae: Samoleae
Samoleae usually have basal rosettes. There are usually 5 staminodes inserted near the sinus between the corolla lobes. The fertile stamens are inserted on the corolla tube opposite the lobes. The ovary is semi inferior.
Samolus valerandi (Brookweed) occurs in the UK, near the sea .
The stomata in Samoleae are anomocytic which means the cells around the stomata are unspecialised epidermal cells without any subsidiary cells.
Theophrastoideae: Theophrasteae
Theophrasteae have sympetalous flowers with stamens opposite the petals and five, petal-like staminodes opposite the sepals. Most taxa are woody plants. The leaves usually have toothed or spiny margins or a pungent apex. The leaves are arranged in whorls. The extrorse anthers form a cone in the center of the flower when it opens, but later they spread. Theophrasteae are found in central America.
Theophrasta:
Primuloideae (basically Primula including Cortusa and Dionysia)
Primuloideae are usually rosette herbs with a scapose inflorescence and medium-sized flowers with connate sepals, obviously connate petals, hypocrateriform corolla and stamens borne opposite the corolla lobes; the placentation is free-central and the capsular fruits have numerous, angular seeds. Heterostyly is common.
plantfamilies 