Plant Groups
Just like with animals, there are many different categories of plants!
Just like in the animal kingdom being divided into vertebrates and invertebrates, plants start out with two categories: flowering plants (angiosperms) and nonflowering (gymnosperms) plants.
All plants carryout a process called “photosynthesis.” This is where plants use the energy of the sun and change water and carbon dioxide into food (sugars) and oxygen. Plants are what provide oxygen for us to breathe…without plants, animals would not have oxygen to breathe. Plants can live both on land and in water.
Flowering Plants (angiosperms)
Flowering Plants can be divided up into more groups: dicots and monocots.
Monocots have one cotyledon in their seed, while dicots have two cotyledons in their seed. Here is a diagram:
Flowering plants include trees. Any plant that produces fruits and seeds is a flowering plant…the plants make their seeds in their flowers.
Monocots
One cotyledon and have petals in multiples of three. Their leaf veins are parallel. They do not produce wood.
Example monocots:
grasses (wheat, oats, corn, and rice), sedges, lilies, irises, palms, orchids, and bananas
Dicots
Two cotyledons and have petals in multiples of 4 or 5. Their leaf veins are more complicated and have more connections than monocots, sort of like a net. Dicots can produce wood.
Example Dicots:
magnolias, oaks, beeches, willows, maples, asters, zinnias, marigolds, cacti, jade plant, tomatoes and potatoes, poison ivy, cotton, blueberries, and rhododendrons
Nonflowering plants (gymnosperms)
Gymnosperms have “naked seeds.” This means they have no fruit surrounding the seed. The seeds are therefore thought of as “naked” and are often in a cone. Some nonflowering plants barely show above the ground, while others grow into the tallest trees! Their are four groups of nonflowering plants: cycad, gnetophytes, ginkgo, and conifers.
Cycads, Ginkgo, and Gnetophytes
The cycad, ginkgo, and gnetophytes groups are rare, with only a few examples left. Most of these types of plants were around in the time of the dinosaurs, but now have died out. There are a small number of these kinds of plants still around.
Cycads resemble palms.
Ginkgo – there is really only one of these types of plants left
.
Gnetophytes – there are a few examples of these. They have long leaves, and their seeds are more like the flowering plants…but not enough to be in that group.
Conifers
The conifers are an abundant group, and you have heard of many of them. They include the cone-bearing trees, sometimes referred to as evergreen. The word evergreen means that these trees do not turn brown during dry seasons. Their needle-shaped leaves stay green all year long. Examples: sequoia, pine, spruce, cypress, and cedar.
