Rosiflorae

Rosiflorae is a historical botanical term that was used to describe a grouping of flowering plants in some 19th- and early 20th-century classification systems. The name, which evokes rose-like flowers, reflected an attempt to categorize a set of dicotyledonous plants based on perceived floral similarities. Its exact meaning and boundaries, however, were not fixed and varied among authors.

In different treatments, Rosiflorae encompassed varying collections of families and genera. Some classifications applied the label to a broad assemblage of rosid-like lineages, while others restricted it to a smaller, more narrowly defined subset. Because the concept depended on morphological interpretation rather than a stable, universally accepted circumscription, it was inherently inconsistent across works and time periods.

With the advent of molecular phylogenetics and a more stable framework for angiosperm relationships, the term Rosiflorae fell out of use. In modern taxonomy, most taxa once placed in Rosiflorae are now assigned to the Rosids, a large and well-supported clade within the eudicots, or to other lineages outside that grouping. The term is generally regarded as obsolete and is mainly of historical interest to the study of botanical classification.

Rosiflorae illustrates how early taxonomic thought relied on morphological likenesses and how contemporary phylogenetic evidence reshaped our understanding of plant relationships. It serves as a reference point for the evolution of classification schemes in botany.