Maleae
Maleae
Tribe of flowering plants
The Maleae (incorrectly Pyreae) are the apple tribe in the rose family, Rosaceae. The group includes a number of plants bearing commercially important fruits, such as apples and pears, while others are cultivated as ornamentals. Older taxonomies separated some of this group as tribe Crataegeae,[2][3] as the Cydonia group (a tentative placement),[3] or some genera were placed in family Quillajaceae.[3]
The tribe consists exclusively of shrubs and small trees. Most have pomes, a type of accessory fruit that does not occur in other Rosaceae. All except Vauquelinia (with 15 chromosomes) have a basal haploid chromosome count of 17, instead of 7, 8, or 9 as in the other Rosaceae.[4]
There are approximately 28 genera that contain about 1100 species worldwide, with most species occurring in the temperate Northern Hemisphere.