Angiosperms

flowering plants

bennettitales 225-56mya Look like cycads but have flowers Reproductive structures are condensed shoots of sterile bracts with highly modified male and female sporophylls—features similar to the highly condensed flowers of angiosperms Ancestral lineage of angiosperms

140 mya Israel, morocco, Britain Pollen wall with tectum and columella layer suggesting it is angiosperm pollen

• Flower parts often in 3s • Venation often parallel in leaves • Very diverse: tiny or herbaceous or woody forms or tree forms

Orchids 25,000 species (largest angiosperm family) Largely tropical but not all Flowers often with distinct labellum, androecium and gynoecium fused in column

Often with highly specialised interactions with pollinators eg. Labellum can mimic females of bee species (colour, feel and smell) and are pollinated by males trying to mate Pollen in the column

Oncidium is an important horticultural group Vanilla

• grasses • wind pollination • rice, wheat, maize

orchidaceae and poaceae

• ranunculales, proteales, rosids and asterids

• Important horticultural plants • Poison darts • Poppy seeds and opium

• Gondwana distribution • Grevilleoideae such as banksias (paired flowers) • Secondary pollen presentation by stigmas • Pollinated by vertebrates • Protea

flowers with distinct parts like fabaceae, rosaceae, mrytaceae and brassicaceae

• Nearly 10% of all eudicots • Herbs, shrubs, trees, vines • Often with root nodules harbouring N-fixing bacteria • Economically important: legumes, clover Acacia: True acacias are in Australia and nearby

• 3000 species, mostly woody, abundant in N hemisphere • Apples, pears, cherries and many other fruits

• Trees and shrubs, mostly tropical and temperature species • Eucalyptus, Corymbia, Angophora (all eucalypts)

• Flowers with distinct cruciform pattern • mustard family, kale, broccoli, turnips, radishes, canola • Pungent compounds

flowers with fused petals, often with epipetalous stamens - solanaceae - laminaceae - campanulacea - asteraceae

• Potatoes and tomatoes and tobacco • Flowers mostly corolla forming a wheel or funnel • Calyx may be persistent on fruit • Many species with poisonous alkaloids

• Most members have flowers with 2 + 3 corollas forming two opposing lobes • Mint family, herbs, lavender

• Widely distributed • Stamens fused or nearly so, often forming a tube around the style • Plunger pollination is common: pushes pollen out of the tube

• Largest eudicot family • Composite: daisies, everlastings • Composites are not single flowers but a cluster of flowers • Sunflowers and weed species like dandelions

• A whole genome-duplication underlies the radiation of angiosperms: provided evolutionary opportunities • Occurred in carboniferous