The big five - A domestication assessment of the five largest plant families.

Five plant families contain more than 10.000 species each and, thus, can be considered as the most successful groups within the Higher plants with respect to species diversity. But there are considerable differences in the usefulness of the families. As the number of crop plants and species diversity in general are positively correlated among the Higher plants, the differences between the families are remarkable and a detailed comparison seems necessary. Our approach is intended to obtain relevant information about all five big plant families.