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Fabaceae subfamilies

Subfamily Mimosoideae

Elias (1981)Elias (1981):
Elias TS. 1981. Mimosoideae. In R.M. Polhill and P.H. Raven, eds., Advances in Legume Systematics. Vol. 2. pt. 1. pp. 143&-152. Internatl. Legume Conf., Proc. 1978. Kew, England. Minis. Agr., Fisheries and Food, Richmond, England., in an overview of the subfamily Mimosoideae, noted that it comprised 64 genera, including 5 unnamed at that time, an unassigned genus, and an unassigned species, and approximately 3,000 species, distributed throughout tropical, subtropical, and warm temperate zones. Nearly two-thirds of the species were found in the genera Acacia with 1,200, Mimosa with 400 500, and Inga with 350–400 species. Over one-half of the mimosoid genera recognized in Polhill and Raven (1981)Polhill and Raven (1981):
Polhill RM and Raven PH, eds. 1981. Advances in Legume Systematics, v. 2, pt. 1, pp. 1–464. Int. Legume Conf., Proc. 1978, Kew, England Minis. Agric., Fisheries and Food, Richmond, England. had 10 species or less; 11 of the genera, mostly African, were monotypic. The distributions and generic names and parameters were based on data from Polhill and Raven, except as noted.

Since Elias (1981)Elias (1981):
Elias TS. 1981. Mimosoideae. In R.M. Polhill and P.H. Raven, eds., Advances in Legume Systematics. Vol. 2. pt. 1. pp. 143&-152. Internatl. Legume Conf., Proc. 1978. Kew, England. Minis. Agr., Fisheries and Food, Richmond, England., a number of changes have been made in Mimosoideae (Polhill, 1994aPolhill, 1994a:
Polhill RM. 1994a. Classification of the Leguminosae. pp. xxx&-xlviii. In F.A. Bisby, J. Buckingham, and J.B. Harborne, eds., Phytochemical Dictionary of the Leguminosae. Chapman & Hall, London, England., 1994b). Attention has been focused at the generic and specific levels, and important progress has been made in generic and specific circumscriptions (Barneby, 1998Barneby, 1998:
Barneby RC. 1998. Silk tree, Guanacaste, Monkey's Earring: A generic system for the synandrous Mimosaceae of the Americas. Part III. Calliandra. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 74(3): 1&-223. ; Barneby and Grimes, 1996Barneby and Grimes, 1996:
Albizia, and allies. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 74(1): 1&-292. , 1997; Maslin, 2001aMaslin, 2001a:
Maslin BR. 2001a. Acacia. In A.E. Orchard and A.J.G. Wilson, eds., Flora of Australia, vol. 11A, Mimosaceae, Acacia part 1, 673 pp. Csiro Publishing, Canberra Australia., 2001b; Nielsen, 1985aNielsen, 1985a:
Nielsen IC. 1985a. Leguminosae—Mimosoideae. In T. Smitinand and K. Larsen, eds., Flora of Thailand 4(2):131&-222., 1985b, 1992a, 1992b, 1992c; Nielsen, Baretta-Kuipers, and Guinet, 1984; Nielsen and Guinet, 1992Nielsen and Guinet, 1992:
Nielsen IC and Guinet P. 1992. Synopsis of Adenanthera (Leguminosae—Mimosoideae). Nordic J. Bot. 12(1):85&-114.; Nielsen, Guinet, and Baretta-Kuipers, 1983a, 1983b, 1984; Pennington, 1997Pennington, 1997:
Pennington TD. 1997. The Genus Inga, Botany, 844 pp. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, England.). The subfamily now has 5 tribes, 76 genera, and approximately 3,000 species. Nearly two thirds of the species are still found in just three genera: Acacia with 1,200, Mimosa with 480, and Inga with 300. Two thirds of the genera have 10 species or less, and 22 genera are monotypic, approximately one-third in the New World and two thirds in the Old World.

At the Fourth International Legume Conference, 2–6 July 2001, Canberra, Australia, separate cladistic analyses employing molecular and morphological data were presented (Grimes and Luckow, 2001; Luckow et al., 2001). Both studies concluded that all current Mimosoideae tribes are not monophyletic, being either paraphyletic or polyphyletic. In the future, the Mimosoideae tribes will be completely reorganized.

For subfamily Mimosoideae unpublished data (pers. commun.) were supplied by reviewers of tribes Parkieae, H.C. Hopkins; Mimoseae, G.P. Lewis; Acacieae, L. Pedley; and Ingeae, R.C. Barneby and I.C. Nielsen.

Fabaceae subfamilies