I am content to leave the Aquifoliales in the Celastranae for now, awaiting more detailed studies, but it will not take much to move them given some of the rather primitive features on finds scattered in some of the smaller families. I cannot, however, justify their transfer to the Asteridae simply because the stamens are adnate to the base of the petals. The members of the Aquifoliales differ substantially from the orders and families I place in the Asteridae in a variety of morphological, anatomical, biochemical and palynological characters. The family name, Aquifoliaceae, is one of the few that requires conservations, as opposed to protection, for its continued use. Like Caryophyllus , Aquifolium was proposed by Philip Miller in 1754 unaware of Linnaeus' Species plantarum so that today, with modern nomenclature starting with the Linnaean book, some of Miller's generic names proved to be illegitimate.
Conservation allows an illegitimate name to be made legitimate and therefore correct.
In the case of Caryophyllaceae and Aquifoliaceae, as well as a handful of other family names, these have been preserved so as to permit their continued, and traditional, use in the scientific literature. The hollies are widely cultivated and been so at least since Roman times. Numerous hybrids and especially cultivars are now recorded in the literature. Nemopanthus mucronatus is cultivated for its decorative fruits.