Coffees, Dogbanes And Milkweeds (Gentianales)

This group gathers Flowering Plants subcategory members belonging to the order Gentianales, an asterid order whose flowers typically fuse their petals into a tube and whose members very often produce latex or bitter alkaloids as a chemical defense. It spans the coffee family Rubiaceae, source of the coffee plant itself, the malaria drug source cinchona and the ornamental gardenia, and the dogbane family Apocynaceae, which despite the name unites the true dogbanes with the milkweeds, long classified as a separate family before molecular evidence folded them into Apocynaceae, together with the oleander, the succulent desert genera Hoodia and Pachypodium, and the tropical vine Cryptostegia. The gentian family Gentianaceae, source of the order's own name, rounds out the group.