luteales

Luteales is a term that has appeared in historical botanical classifications as the name of an order of flowering plants. Its exact circumscription has varied among authors, and there is no single, universally accepted definition. In some older or alternative systems, Luteales was used to group several families that shared certain morphological or pigment-related traits, with the name deriving from the Latin luteus, meaning yellow. The composition of the order thus differed between taxonomic treatments, making the term more of a historical designation than a stable, universally recognized taxon.

In modern plant taxonomy, Luteales is not recognized as a valid order. The advent of molecular phylogenetics and the adoption of the APG classification framework led to a substantial reorganization of angiosperm relationships, and the name Luteales is not included among the major, currently accepted orders. Some sources treated Luteales as an obsolete or deprecated name, used in descriptive contexts rather than as a formal circumscription.

The term serves more to illustrate the historical evolution of plant taxonomy than to denote a currently accepted group. When encountered in older literature, it is typically necessary to consult the specific author’s treatment to understand which families or genera were included, and to recognize that such usage may not align with modern classifications.

See also: angiosperm taxonomy, APG system, Cronquist system, plant taxonomy history.