flowering plants

Magnoliopsida is the class of seed plants commonly called flowering plants. It includes both monocots and dicots.

Magnoliopsida are plants that produce flowers, produce seeds which contain endosperm, and enclose their seeds within a fruit.

There are 46 post-Darwinian taxonomic systems. Several are in use today. In the Dahlgren and Thorne systems the class Magnoliopsida includes both monocotyledons (monocots) and dicotylidons (dicots). In the Cronquist and Takhtajan systems the class includes only dicotylidons.

Recent DNA studies have confirmed what was long known. The class Magnoliopsida is paraphyletic, meaning that it does not include all of the decendants of a common ancestor and is therefore invalid. The APG system on the Angiosperm Phylogeny Website by the Missouri Botanical Garden (MOBOT) reorders plant taxonomy based on molecular DNA, but it remains controversial. It breaks apart some long-established plant families and submerges some others. It also abandons names for ranks above the level of family, calling all of them “clade”. Since its publication in 1998, the APG sytstem has been revised three times. The current system is APG IV, which was published in 2016. In the APG system the class Magnoliopsida is not defined and the traditional groupiing of dicots is rejected.

Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) has created a system of its own that resembles the Thorne system in the use of Superorders, but has significant differences. In the ITIS system the class Magnoliopsida includes both monocots and dicots. The ITIS system is abbreviated, meaning that there are “some notable gaps”. For instance, it does not include subclasses.

The Taxonomicon (The Taxonomicon. Universal Taxonomic Services, Zwaag, The Netherlands) uses the Systema Naturae 2000 classification. It is similar to ITIS but includes a few to several clades between each higher order ranking.

The classification for plants used on MinnesotaSeasons.com follows the abbreviated taxonomic ranking system of ITIS.

Discovered this at the end of the season and none that were full grown, but will look for more in the spring. I'm not sure on the ID, but after looking on Minnesota Wildflowers and Trees and Shrubs of Minnesota, I think it is bog birch, almost a round leaf with scallops.

This plant popped up in the backyard a restaurant during the drought 2021. The drought was so bad we let anything grow even though (invasive) not sure if it was good or bad.

Location: Woodbury, MN

Location: Fairview Twp, Cass County

Discovered this at the end of the season and none that were full grown, but will look for more in the spring. I'm not sure on the ID, but after looking on Minnesota Wildflowers and Trees and Shrubs of Minnesota, I think it is bog birch, almost a round leaf with scallops.

Location: Fairview Twp.

This plant popped up in the backyard a restaurant during the drought 2021. The drought was so bad we let anything grow even though (invasive) not sure if it was good or bad.