The Octagonal Division Of Plant Systematics

In present paper, we review the history of Illiciaceae and present its research actuality as well as putting forward the existed problems. Aimed at these problems, wood anatomy of Illiciaceae and its related taxa—Schisandraceae and Magnoliaceae, and morphology of tepal epidermis of Illiciales composed of Illiciaceae and Schisandraceae are studied. And our studies comfirm Illiciaeceae as primitive taxa in dialycarpous angiosperms and afford more evidence to support the classification of its subordinate genus level, what's more, the systematical relationship among Illiciaceae and its related groups was clarified. And our present study also support to establish the order of Illiciales.1 Comparative wood anatomy of Illiciaceae and its related taxa Quantitative and qualitative features of wood anatomy are reported for 43 collections of 19 species of Illiciaceae, 7 collections of 4 species of Schisandraceae and 4 collections of 3 species of Magnoliaceae.Owing to the following characters :⑴vessel elements are notably narrow, exclusively solitary, angular, numerous, thin and long and with helical thickening ;⑵scalariform perforate plates are with very numerous fine bars;⑶the type of rays is heterogenous, we incline to the viewpoint that the Illiciaceae should be established as its own. Within the genus of Illicium, the species which characterized by distinctly narrow vessels, large numbers of vessels per sq. mm (as to the lower vulentability =0.090) and high ray are included in the section of Illicium . On the contrary, the section of Cymbostemon is composed of the species with wider vessels, lower density of vessel elements(as to the higher vulnerability= 0.194) and short ray. Then we support to separate Illicium into two sections: section Illicium and section Cymbostemon. What's more, the section Cymbostemon is more specialized than section. Illicium According to Mean Euclidean distance coefficient, however, Illiciaceae is closer to Schisandraceae(d=4.690) than to Magnoliaceae(d=4.899) . So...