Plant Families & Taxonomy Codexery

Flowering plant

Flowering plants dominate land habitats and sustain human agriculture.

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Flowering plants, or angiosperms, bear flowers and fruits, with seeds enclosed within a fruit.[1] With 64 orders, 416 families, roughly 13,000 known genera, and 300,000 known species, angiosperms constitute the most varied group of land plants.[2] Magnoliophyta is an older name for this group.[3]

Quick Facts

Field
Botany
Largest species
Eucalyptus gum trees and Shorea faguetiana, up to ~100 m tall
Smallest species
Wolffia duckweeds, less than 2 mm (0.079 in) across

Facts from the source article.

Biology and range

The largest angiosperms are Eucalyptus gum trees and Shorea faguetiana, which can reach almost 100 m in height.[4] Flowering plants range from small herbaceous plants, often annuals, to large perennial woody trees that may live for many centuries.[6] Angiosperms have a worldwide distribution, inhabiting terrestrial, freshwater, and marine settings.[7] Except for frigid moss-lichen tundra and coniferous forest, flowering plants are the predominant plant group in all terrestrial habitats.[7]

Approximately 99% of angiosperms are photosynthetic autotrophs, obtaining energy from sunlight.[5] Certain specialized angiosperms thrive in habitats that are highly acidic or highly alkaline.[8]

What the specialist sources record

The University of Nevada, Las Vegas account notes that angiosperms live in all terrestrial and aquatic habitats on earth.[9] The first fossils of angiosperms are no older than 135 million years, but they may have originated as long as 200 million years ago.[9] The Guinness World Records entry records the world's tallest angiosperm as a yellow meranti in Malaysia measured at 98.53 m tall.[10] The Botanic Gardens Conservation International account estimates that at least 25% of plant species are now threatened with extinction.[11]

That source also states that habitat destruction from human activity is estimated to be the primary threat for 83% of endangered plant species.[11] A temperature rise of 2-3°C over the next hundred years could result in half the world’s plant species being threatened with extinction.[11] The Observer article reports that maize, rice, and wheat together make up 51% of the world’s calorie intake.[12]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Flowering plant" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Lindley, "Introduction to the Natural System of Botany", Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1830, p. xxxvi; Cantino, "Towards a phylogenetic nomenclature of Tracheophyta", Taxon, 2007, p. E1–E44 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Flowering plant" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Christenhusz, "The number of known plants species in the world and its annual increase", Phytotaxa, 2016, p. 201–217 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "Flowering plant" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Takhtajan 1980 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  4. Wikipedia, "Flowering plant" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Menara, yellow meranti, Shorea", Guinness World Records, 6 January 2019; "The Charms of Duckweed", Missouri Botanical Garden, 2009-11-25 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  5. Wikipedia, "Flowering plant" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Leake, "The biology of myco-heterotrophic ('saprophytic') plants", New Phytologist, 1994, p. 171–216; Westwood, "The evolution of parasitism in plants", Trends in Plant Science, 2010, p. 227–235 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "Flowering plant" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Hart, "Why are Biennials so Few?", The American Naturalist, 1977, p. 792–799 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  7. Wikipedia, "Flowering plant" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Angiosperms", University of Nevada, Las Vegas; Kendrick, "Plant Regeneration from Seeds", Elsevier, 2022, p. 275–283 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  8. Wikipedia, "Flowering plant" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Karlsson, "Contrasting effects of supplementary feeding of insects or mineral nutrients on the growth and nitrogen and phosphorous economy of pygmy species of Drosera.", Oecologia, 1992, p. 8–13; Pardoe, "Mountain Plants of the British Isles", National Museum of Wales, 1995, p. 24 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  9. "Angiosperms", University of Nevada, Las Vegas. facts only, no text reused. landau.faculty.unlv.edu
  10. "Menara, yellow meranti, Shorea", Guinness World Records, 6 January 2019. facts only, no text reused. guinnessworldrecords.com
  11. "Botanic Gardens and Plant Conservation", Botanic Gardens Conservation International. facts only, no text reused. bgci.org
  12. McKie, "Maize, rice, wheat: alarm at rising climate risk to vital crops", The Observer, 16 July 2017. facts only, no text reused. theguardian.com

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Flowering plant (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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Sources

Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.

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