Description:

• Deciduous or evergreen trees, shrubs or herbs, usually perennial, erect, scandent or prostrate, sometimes stems or leaves armed with prickles or thorns; plants rarely dioecious or monoecious
• Leaves alternate or rarely opposite or borne in groups of 2 or 3 at each node, simple or compound, often with a toothed margin; petiole often dilated at base, 2-glandular at apex; stipules 2, free or adnate to petiole, sometimes caducous, rarely obsolete
• Inflorescences corymbose, racemose or paniculate, or flowers solitary; with or without bracteoles
• Flowers mostly bisexual, rarely unisexual, regular, often large, with well developed, flat, convex or concave, often hollow receptacle/calyx tube/hypanthium
• Calyx: tube short or long; lobes 5, rarely (0)3-many, imbricate, occasionally with outer, alternating lobes forming an epicalyx
• Disc lining calyx tube sometimes tumid or lobed
• Petals as many as calyx lobes, usually free, inserted below margin of disc, imbricate or convolute, often deciduous, or 0
• Stamens 1-many, sometimes biseriate, usually inserted with petals; filaments usually free and filiform, sometimes connate; anthers mostly small, 2-thecous, dehiscing by longitudinal slits
• Ovary superior or inferior, 1-many carpels, in 1-many rows, free or connate to varying degrees together or to calyx tube, sessile or stalked; ovule 1 or 2, rarely many in each carpel, ascending or pendulous, anatropous to hemitropous or campylotropous, bitegmic; styles as many as carpels, free or rarely connate, inserted at base of ventral face of carpels, sometimes terminal; stigmas capitate to plumose
• Fruit various, dry or fleshy, 1-many achenes or follicles crowded on a dry or fleshy receptacle, or drupes, or pomes
• Seeds erect or pendulous; endosperm usually 0; embryo small, straight or bent

Classification Notes:

• The family contains many important ornamentals, e.g. *Cotoneaster; *Crataegus, Hawthorn; *Pyracantha, Fire thorn; *Rosa, roses; and fruits, e.g. *Cydonia, Quince; *Eriobotrya, Loquats; * Fragaria, Strawberry; *Malus, Apples; *Pyrus, Pears, etc

Nomenclature:

• Rosaceae
  • Jussieu: 334 (1789)
  • Candolle: 525 (1825)
  • Hooker: 601 (1865)
  • Focke: 1 (1894)
  • Engler: 125 (1912)
  • Phipps et al.: 2209 (1990) (subfamily Maloideae)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Genera ± 107, species ± 3 000, subcosmopolitan but mostly in temperate and cooler parts of the northern hemisphere
• Southern Africa: Genera 18 (9 exotic), species 172 (± 30 exotic)

References:

• CANDOLLE, A.-P. DE. 1825. Rosaceae. Prodromus 2. Treuttel & Würtz, Paris
• ENGLER, A. 1912. Rosaceae africanae IV. Botanische Jahrbücher 46
• FOCKE, W.O. 1894. Rosaceae. Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien 3,3
• HOOKER, J.D. 1865. Rosaceae. In G. Bentham & J. D. Hooker, Genera plantarum 1. Lovell Reeve & Co., London
• JUSSIEU, A.L. DE. 1789. Rosaceae, les Rosacées. Genera plantarum secundum ordines naturales disposita. Herissant & Barrois, Paris
• MABBERLEY, D.J. 1997. The plant-book, edn 2. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
• PHIPPS, J.B., ROBERTSON, K.R., SMITH, P.G. & ROHRER, J.R. 1990. A checklist of the subfamily Maloideae (Rosaceae). Canadian Journal of Botany 68,10

Resources:

• Classification of Rosaceae
• Key to Rosaceae genera

• Rosaceae genera: