Showing posts with label Garden Flowers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Garden Flowers. Show all posts
FLOWERS
Flower Arranging Enthusiasts
If you'd like to learn the skill of flower arranging , impress your family and friends and cut the expense of floral arrangements by 55% or more, then this might be the most important letter you'll ever read.
Here's why:
I don’t know about you, but I hate spending $50, $80 or more for flower arrangements (and that’s before tax and delivery charges are added in!), when you know you can do the job for less. And it can be doubly aggravating when the styles offered are all alike.
Maybe you have that special occasion in your life where you want to give that unique flower arrangement such as a wedding flower design, a dried/silk floral basket for an anniversary or even a funeral flower arrangement with beautiful tulips, roses, or any flower of your choice. How about being able to create something like this?
 |  |
| "Bridal Round" Wedding Bouquet - Orange and White Roses with Babies Breath finished off with a Satin Bow. | "Flower Girl's Wedding Bouquet" - Bi-Colored Dark Pink Carnations with Matching Solid Dark-Pink Miniature Carnations on fern base w/ Lace Trim & Ribbons. |
No matter what the occasion you may want to express your feelings in your own special unique way.
Just like you, I was amazed at how many look alike arrangements were out there and how expensive they were. At times with more than a 200% profit margin for the seller.
That’s when I decided to put my experience to work and develop my own easy step-by-step guide for creating floral arrangements that will save you 55% or more of the cost over a florist and be fun and unique at the same time.
But Why Should you trust my Flower Arranging Expertise
For more than 15 years I have been an independent artist making my own floral designs and am recognized for the beauty of my designs by my friends and acquaintances.
On many occasions I have dazzled my friends with my own unique floral arrangement designs I have made for them.
I consider myself an expert in simple yet elegant designs. I have created flower baskets, floral centerpieces, wreaths, wedding bouquets, holiday arrangements, etc., that have always made a wonderful impression on my visitors, friends, and customers.
That is why I have decided to share my experiences in an all encompassing step-by-step e-book, “Flower Arrangements Made Simple” that will enable my readers to become accomplished unique floral arrangement specialists in their own rights. So that you can create fresh flower arrangements like these:
 |  |
| "Cascade" WeddingBouquet - Red and Pink roses, with Babies breath, English ivy, finished off with a large bow trimmed with pearls | "Teacup" Wedding Flower Arrangement with Baby's Breath, Pink and Red Roses |
This Flower Arranging Guide is Guaranteed to Do the Following for You:
- Many chapters of floral arranging information, including articles on various types of arrangements, using texture, color and many other easy to learn arranging skills.
- Read for yourself the flower arrangement information that is included in the Table of Contents:
Chapter 1: Introduction to Flower Arrangements Made Simple - written in plain easy to understand language making floral design simple to learn.Chapter 2: Flower Arranging Must Haves (from Floral Foam to Vases, everything you will need to get started).Chapter 3: What Makes a Beautiful Arrangement (the meaning of line, form and color in a floral arrangement).Chapter 4: Types of Flower Arrangements - Learn the three basic floral designs needed to create any flower arrangement.
DESCRIPTION OF FLOWERS
Description:
Free Flower Pictures from Free Nature Pictures - In the springtime, the area around Fort Bragg is teeming with beautiful flowers in bloom. It was a great time to get into flower photography, and we have lots of beautiful pictures of flowers in the bright spring sunlight, taken when I lived in Fort Bragg. Flowers have been one of my favorite subjects ever since.
We've tried to categorize our pics according to each type of flower, but there are so many kinds around here that it is hard to keep track. If you know the name of a flower we have not identified, please let us know! We also have flower images from New Mexico, Queensland Australia, and the Denver Botanical Gardens. These are by far the most popular of our photos as you can see from the Facebook "likes," and we hope you'll enjoy them and share them with your friends too!
ROSES LILIES
Roses
Our rose pictures are by far the most popular of our flower pictures. We have red, white, yellow, pink and purple roses, photographed outdoors in sunlight. The classic beauty of roses adds an elegant touch to any project.
Lilies
We have several varieties of lilies, including brilliant tigerlilies, lovely calla lilies, and the beautiful and rare purple Magic Lily.
Roses
Our rose pictures are by far the most popular of our flower pictures. We have red, white, yellow, pink and purple roses, photographed outdoors in sunlight. The classic beauty of roses adds an elegant touch to any project.
Lilies
We have several varieties of lilies, including brilliant tigerlilies, lovely calla lilies, and the beautiful and rare purple Magic Lily.
Evolution OF FLOWERS
Evolution
Flowers of Malus sylvestris (crab apple)
Further information: Evolutionary history of plants#Flowers
Fossilized spores suggest that higher plants (embryophytes) have lived on the land for at least 475 million years.[3] Early land plants reproduced sexually with flagellated, swimming sperm, like the green algae from which they evolved. An adaptation to terrestrialization was the development of upright meiosporangia for dispersal by spores to new habitats. This feature is lacking in the descendants of their nearest algal relatives, the Charophycean green algae. A later terrestrial adaptation took place with retention of the delicate, avascular sexual stage, the gametophyte, within the tissues of the vascular sporophyte. This occurred by spore germination within sporangia rather than spore release, as in non-seed plants. A current example of how this might have happened can be seen in the precocious spore germination in Sellaginella, the spike-moss. The result for the ancestors of angiosperms was encloAsing them in a case, the seed. The first seed bearing plants, like the ginkgo, andconifers (such as pines and firs), did not produce flowers. The pollen grains (males) ofGinkgo and cycads produce a pair of flagellated, mobile sperm cells that "swim" down the developing pollen tube to the female and her eggs.
The apparently sudden appearance of relatively modern flowers in the fossil record initially posed such a problem for the theory of evolution that it was called an "abominable mystery" by Charles Darwin.[4] However, the fossil record has considerably grown since the time of Darwin, and recently discovered angiosperm fossils such as Archaefructus, along with further discoveries of fossil gymnosperms, suggest how angiosperm characteristics may have been acquired in a series of steps. Several groups of extinct gymnosperms, in particular seed ferns, have been proposed as the ancestors of flowering plants, but there is no continuous fossil evidence showing exactly how flowers evolved. Some older fossils, such as the upper Triassic Sanmiguelia, have been suggested. Based on current evidence, some propose that the ancestors of the angiosperms diverged from an unknown group of gymnosperms during the lateTriassic (245–202 million years ago). A close relationship between angiosperms and gnetophytes, proposed on the basis ofmorphological evidence, has more recently been disputed on the basis of molecular evidence that suggest gnetophytes are instead more closely related to other gymnosperms.[citation needed]
The evolution of seed plants and later angiosperms appears to be the result of two distinct rounds of whole genome duplication events.[5] These occurred in 319 million years ago and 192 million years ago respectively.
The earliest known macrofossil confidently identified as an angiosperm, Archaefructus liaoningensis, is dated to about 125 million years BP (the Cretaceous period),[6] while pollen considered to be of angiosperm origin takes the fossil record back to about 130 million years BP. However, one study has suggested that the early-middle Jurassic plant Schmeissneria, traditionally considered a type of ginkgo, may be the earliest known angiosperm, or at least a close relative.[7] In addition, circumstantial chemical evidence has been found for the existence of angiosperms as early as 250 million years ago. Oleanane, a secondary metabolite produced by many flowering plants, has been found in Permian deposits of that age together with fossils of gigantopterids.[8][9] Gigantopterids are a group of extinct seed plants that share many morphological traits with flowering plants, although they are not known to have been flowering plants themselves.
Recent DNA analysis based on molecular systematics [10][11] showed that Amborella trichopoda, found on the Pacific island of New Caledonia, belongs to a sister group of the other flowering plants, and morphological studies [12] suggest that it has features that may have been characteristic of the earliest flowering plants.
The orders Amborellales, Nymphaeales, and Austrobaileyales diverged as separate lineages from the remaining angiosperm clade at a very early stage in flowering plant evolution.[13]
The great angiosperm radiation, when a great diversity of angiosperms appears in the fossil record, occurred in the mid-Cretaceous(approximately 100 million years ago). However, a study in 2007 estimated that the division of the five most recent (the genusCeratophyllum, the family Chloranthaceae, the eudicots, the magnoliids, and the monocots) of the eight main groups occurred around 140 million years ago.[14] By the late Cretaceous, angiosperms appear to have dominated environments formerly occupied by ferns andcycadophytes, but large canopy-forming trees replaced conifers as the dominant trees only close to the end of the Cretaceous 65 millions years ago or even later, at the beginning of the Tertiary.[15] The radiation of herbaceous angiosperm occurred much later.[16]Yet, many fossil plants recognizable as belonging to modern families (including beech, oak, maple, and magnolia) appeared already at late Cretaceous.
Two bees on a flower head of Creeping Thistle, Cirsium arvense
It is generally assumed that the function of flowers, from the start, was to involve mobile animals in their reproduction processes. That is, pollen can be scattered even if the flower is not brightly coloredor oddly shaped in a way that attracts animals; however, by expending the energy required to create such traits, angiosperms can enlist the aid of animals and, thus, reproduce more efficiently.
Island genetics provides one proposed explanation for the sudden, fully developed appearance of flowering plants. Island genetics is believed to be a common source of speciation in general, especially when it comes to radical adaptations that seem to have required inferior transitional forms. Flowering plants may have evolved in an isolated setting like an island or island chain, where the plants bearing them were able to develop a highly specialized relationship with some specific animal (a wasp, for example). Such a relationship, with a hypothetical wasp carrying pollen from one plant to another much the way fig wasps do today, could result in the development of a high degree ofspecialization in both the plant(s) and their partners. Note that the wasp example is not incidental;bees, which, it is postulated, evolved specifically due to mutualistic plant relationships, are descended from wasps.
Animals are also involved in the distribution of seeds. Fruit, which is formed by the enlargement of flower parts, is frequently a seed-dispersal tool that attracts animals to eat or otherwise disturb it, incidentally scattering the seeds it contains (see frugivory). While many such mutualistic relationships remain too fragile to survive competition and to spread widely, flowering proved to be an unusually effective means of reproduction, spreading (whatever its origin) to become the dominant form of land plant life.
Flower ontogeny uses a combination of genes normally responsible for forming new shoots.[17] The most primitive flowers are thought to have had a variable number of flower parts, often separate from (but in contact with) each other. The flowers would have tended to grow in a spiral pattern, to be bisexual (in plants, this means both male and female parts on the same flower), and to be dominated by theovary (female part). As flowers grew more advanced, some variations developed parts fused together, with a much more specific number and design, and with either specific sexes per flower or plant, or at least "ovary-inferior".
Flower evolution continues to the present day; modern flowers have been so profoundly influenced by humans that some of them cannot be pollinated in nature. Many modern, domesticated flowers used to be simple weeds, which sprouted only when the ground was disturbed. Some of them tended to grow with human crops, perhaps already having symbiotic companion plant relationships with them, and the prettiest did not get plucked because of their beauty, developing a dependence upon and special adaptation to human affection.[18]
A few paleontologists have also come up with a theory that flowering plants, or angiosperms, might have evolved because of dinosaurs; in other words, they believe that dinosaurs "created" flowers. One of the theory's biggest proponents is Robert T. Bakker. He theorizes that herbivorous dinosaurs, with their eating habits, forced plants to find new ways to develop new adaptations, in order to avoid predation by herbivores.[citation needed]
Flowers of Malus sylvestris (crab apple)
Further information: Evolutionary history of plants#Flowers
Fossilized spores suggest that higher plants (embryophytes) have lived on the land for at least 475 million years.[3] Early land plants reproduced sexually with flagellated, swimming sperm, like the green algae from which they evolved. An adaptation to terrestrialization was the development of upright meiosporangia for dispersal by spores to new habitats. This feature is lacking in the descendants of their nearest algal relatives, the Charophycean green algae. A later terrestrial adaptation took place with retention of the delicate, avascular sexual stage, the gametophyte, within the tissues of the vascular sporophyte. This occurred by spore germination within sporangia rather than spore release, as in non-seed plants. A current example of how this might have happened can be seen in the precocious spore germination in Sellaginella, the spike-moss. The result for the ancestors of angiosperms was encloAsing them in a case, the seed. The first seed bearing plants, like the ginkgo, andconifers (such as pines and firs), did not produce flowers. The pollen grains (males) ofGinkgo and cycads produce a pair of flagellated, mobile sperm cells that "swim" down the developing pollen tube to the female and her eggs.
The apparently sudden appearance of relatively modern flowers in the fossil record initially posed such a problem for the theory of evolution that it was called an "abominable mystery" by Charles Darwin.[4] However, the fossil record has considerably grown since the time of Darwin, and recently discovered angiosperm fossils such as Archaefructus, along with further discoveries of fossil gymnosperms, suggest how angiosperm characteristics may have been acquired in a series of steps. Several groups of extinct gymnosperms, in particular seed ferns, have been proposed as the ancestors of flowering plants, but there is no continuous fossil evidence showing exactly how flowers evolved. Some older fossils, such as the upper Triassic Sanmiguelia, have been suggested. Based on current evidence, some propose that the ancestors of the angiosperms diverged from an unknown group of gymnosperms during the lateTriassic (245–202 million years ago). A close relationship between angiosperms and gnetophytes, proposed on the basis ofmorphological evidence, has more recently been disputed on the basis of molecular evidence that suggest gnetophytes are instead more closely related to other gymnosperms.[citation needed]
The evolution of seed plants and later angiosperms appears to be the result of two distinct rounds of whole genome duplication events.[5] These occurred in 319 million years ago and 192 million years ago respectively.
The earliest known macrofossil confidently identified as an angiosperm, Archaefructus liaoningensis, is dated to about 125 million years BP (the Cretaceous period),[6] while pollen considered to be of angiosperm origin takes the fossil record back to about 130 million years BP. However, one study has suggested that the early-middle Jurassic plant Schmeissneria, traditionally considered a type of ginkgo, may be the earliest known angiosperm, or at least a close relative.[7] In addition, circumstantial chemical evidence has been found for the existence of angiosperms as early as 250 million years ago. Oleanane, a secondary metabolite produced by many flowering plants, has been found in Permian deposits of that age together with fossils of gigantopterids.[8][9] Gigantopterids are a group of extinct seed plants that share many morphological traits with flowering plants, although they are not known to have been flowering plants themselves.
Recent DNA analysis based on molecular systematics [10][11] showed that Amborella trichopoda, found on the Pacific island of New Caledonia, belongs to a sister group of the other flowering plants, and morphological studies [12] suggest that it has features that may have been characteristic of the earliest flowering plants.
The orders Amborellales, Nymphaeales, and Austrobaileyales diverged as separate lineages from the remaining angiosperm clade at a very early stage in flowering plant evolution.[13]
The great angiosperm radiation, when a great diversity of angiosperms appears in the fossil record, occurred in the mid-Cretaceous(approximately 100 million years ago). However, a study in 2007 estimated that the division of the five most recent (the genusCeratophyllum, the family Chloranthaceae, the eudicots, the magnoliids, and the monocots) of the eight main groups occurred around 140 million years ago.[14] By the late Cretaceous, angiosperms appear to have dominated environments formerly occupied by ferns andcycadophytes, but large canopy-forming trees replaced conifers as the dominant trees only close to the end of the Cretaceous 65 millions years ago or even later, at the beginning of the Tertiary.[15] The radiation of herbaceous angiosperm occurred much later.[16]Yet, many fossil plants recognizable as belonging to modern families (including beech, oak, maple, and magnolia) appeared already at late Cretaceous.
Two bees on a flower head of Creeping Thistle, Cirsium arvense
It is generally assumed that the function of flowers, from the start, was to involve mobile animals in their reproduction processes. That is, pollen can be scattered even if the flower is not brightly coloredor oddly shaped in a way that attracts animals; however, by expending the energy required to create such traits, angiosperms can enlist the aid of animals and, thus, reproduce more efficiently.
Island genetics provides one proposed explanation for the sudden, fully developed appearance of flowering plants. Island genetics is believed to be a common source of speciation in general, especially when it comes to radical adaptations that seem to have required inferior transitional forms. Flowering plants may have evolved in an isolated setting like an island or island chain, where the plants bearing them were able to develop a highly specialized relationship with some specific animal (a wasp, for example). Such a relationship, with a hypothetical wasp carrying pollen from one plant to another much the way fig wasps do today, could result in the development of a high degree ofspecialization in both the plant(s) and their partners. Note that the wasp example is not incidental;bees, which, it is postulated, evolved specifically due to mutualistic plant relationships, are descended from wasps.
Animals are also involved in the distribution of seeds. Fruit, which is formed by the enlargement of flower parts, is frequently a seed-dispersal tool that attracts animals to eat or otherwise disturb it, incidentally scattering the seeds it contains (see frugivory). While many such mutualistic relationships remain too fragile to survive competition and to spread widely, flowering proved to be an unusually effective means of reproduction, spreading (whatever its origin) to become the dominant form of land plant life.
Flower ontogeny uses a combination of genes normally responsible for forming new shoots.[17] The most primitive flowers are thought to have had a variable number of flower parts, often separate from (but in contact with) each other. The flowers would have tended to grow in a spiral pattern, to be bisexual (in plants, this means both male and female parts on the same flower), and to be dominated by theovary (female part). As flowers grew more advanced, some variations developed parts fused together, with a much more specific number and design, and with either specific sexes per flower or plant, or at least "ovary-inferior".
Flower evolution continues to the present day; modern flowers have been so profoundly influenced by humans that some of them cannot be pollinated in nature. Many modern, domesticated flowers used to be simple weeds, which sprouted only when the ground was disturbed. Some of them tended to grow with human crops, perhaps already having symbiotic companion plant relationships with them, and the prettiest did not get plucked because of their beauty, developing a dependence upon and special adaptation to human affection.[18]
A few paleontologists have also come up with a theory that flowering plants, or angiosperms, might have evolved because of dinosaurs; in other words, they believe that dinosaurs "created" flowers. One of the theory's biggest proponents is Robert T. Bakker. He theorizes that herbivorous dinosaurs, with their eating habits, forced plants to find new ways to develop new adaptations, in order to avoid predation by herbivores.[citation needed]
Flowering plant and life cycle
Flowers
The flowers, which are the reproductive organs of flowering plants, are the most remarkable feature distinguishing them from the other seed plants. Flowers aid angiosperms by enabling a wider range of adaptability and broadening the ecological niches open to them.[clarification needed] This has allowed flowering plants to largely dominate terrestrial ecosystems.[citation needed]
Stamens with two pairs of pollen sacs
Stamens are much lighter than the corresponding organs of gymnosperms and have contributed to the diversification of angiosperms through time with adaptations to specialized pollination syndromes, such as particular pollinators. Stamens have also become modified through time[clarification needed] to prevent self-fertilization, which has permitted further diversification, allowing angiosperms eventually to fill more niches.[clarification needed]
Reduced male parts, three cells
The male gametophyte in angiosperms is significantly reduced in size compared to those of gymnosperm seed plants.[citation needed] The smaller pollen decreases the time[clarification needed] from pollination — the pollen grain reaching the female plant — tofertilization. In gymnosperms, fertilization can occur up to a year after pollination, whereas in angiosperms, fertilization begins very soon after pollination. The shorter time leads to angiosperm plants' setting seeds sooner and faster than gymnosperms, which is a distinct evolutionary advantage.[clarification needed]
Closed carpel enclosing the ovules (carpel or carpels and accessory parts may become the fruit)
The closed carpel of angiosperms also allows adaptations to specialized pollination syndromes and controls.[clarification needed] This helps to prevent self-fertilization, thereby maintaining increased diversity. Once the ovary is fertilized, the carpel and some surrounding tissues develop into a fruit. This fruit often serves as an attractant to seed-dispersing animals. The resulting cooperative relationship presents another advantage to angiosperms in the process of dispersal.
Reduced female gametophyte, seven cells with eight nuclei
The reduced female gametophyte, like the reduced male gametophyte, may be an adaptation allowing for more rapid seed set, eventually leading to such flowering plant adaptations as annual herbaceous life-cycles, allowing the flowering plants to fill even more niches.[clarification needed]
Endosperm
In general, endosperm formation begins after fertilization and before the first division of the zygote. Endosperm is a highly nutritive tissue that can provide food for the developing embryo, the cotyledons, and sometimes the seedling when it first appears.
These distinguishing characteristics taken together have made the angiosperms the most diverse and numerous land plants and the most commercially important group to humans.[citation needed] The major exception to the dominance of terrestrial ecosystems by flowering plants is the coniferous forest.
[edit]Evolution
Flowers of Malus sylvestris (crab apple)
Further information: Evolutionary history of plants#Flowers
Fossilized spores suggest that higher plants (embryophytes) have lived on the land for at least 475 million years.[3] Early land plants reproduced sexually with flagellated, swimming sperm, like the green algae from which they evolved. An adaptation to terrestrialization was the development of upright meiosporangia for dispersal by spores to new habitats. This feature is lacking in the descendants of their nearest algal relatives, the Charophycean green algae. A later terrestrial adaptation took place with retention of the delicate, avascular sexual stage, the gametophyte, within the tissues of the vascular sporophyte. This occurred by spore germination within sporangia rather than spore release, as in non-seed plants. A current example of how this might have happened can be seen in the precocious spore germination in Sellaginella, the spike-moss. The result for the ancestors of angiosperms was enclosing them in a case, the seed. The first seed bearing plants, like the ginkgo, andconifers (such as pines and firs), did not produce flowers. The pollen grains (males) ofGinkgo and cycads produce a pair of flagellated, mobile sperm cells that "swim" down the developing pollen tube to the female and her eggs.
The apparently sudden appearance of relatively modern flowers in the fossil record initially posed such a problem for the theory of evolution that it was called an "abominable mystery" by Charles Darwin.[4] However, the fossil record has considerably grown since the time of Darwin, and recently discovered angiosperm fossils such as Archaefructus, along with further discoveries of fossil gymnosperms, suggest how angiosperm characteristics may have been acquired in a series of steps. Several groups of extinct gymnosperms, in particular seed ferns, have been proposed as the ancestors of flowering plants, but there is no continuous fossil evidence showing exactly how flowers evolved. Some older fossils, such as the upper Triassic Sanmiguelia, have been suggested. Based on current evidence, some propose that the ancestors of the angiosperms diverged from an unknown group of gymnosperms during the lateTriassic (245–202 million years ago). A close relationship between angiosperms and gnetophytes, proposed on the basis ofmorphological evidence, has more recently been disputed on the basis of molecular evidence that suggest gnetophytes are instead more closely related to other gymnosperms.[citation needed]
The evolution of seed plants and later angiosperms appears to be the result of two distinct rounds of whole genome duplication events.[5] These occurred in 319 million years ago and 192 million years ago respectively.
The earliest known macrofossil confidently identified as an angiosperm, Archaefructus liaoningensis, is dated to about 125 million years BP (the Cretaceous period),[6] while pollen considered to be of angiosperm origin takes the fossil record back to about 130 million years BP. However, one study has suggested that the early-middle Jurassic plant Schmeissneria, traditionally considered a type of ginkgo, may be the earliest known angiosperm, or at least a close relative.[7] In addition, circumstantial chemical evidence has been found for the existence of angiosperms as early as 250 million years ago. Oleanane, a secondary metabolite produced by many flowering plants, has been found in Permian deposits of that age together with fossils of gigantopterids.[8][9] Gigantopterids are a group of extinct seed plants that share many morphological traits with flowering plants, although they are not known to have been flowering plants themselves.
Recent DNA analysis based on molecular systematics [10][11] showed that Amborella trichopoda, found on the Pacific island of New Caledonia, belongs to a sister group of the other flowering plants, and morphological studies [12] suggest that it has features that may have been characteristic of the earliest flowering plants.
The orders Amborellales, Nymphaeales, and Austrobaileyales diverged as separate lineages from the remaining angiosperm clade at a very early stage in flowering plant evolution.[13]
The great angiosperm radiation, when a great diversity of angiosperms appears in the fossil record, occurred in the mid-Cretaceous(approximately 100 million years ago). However, a study in 2007 estimated that the division of the five most recent (the genusCeratophyllum, the family Chloranthaceae, the eudicots, the magnoliids, and the monocots) of the eight main groups occurred around 140 million years ago.[14] By the late Cretaceous, angiosperms appear to have dominated environments formerly occupied by ferns andcycadophytes, but large canopy-forming trees replaced conifers as the dominant trees only close to the end of the Cretaceous 65 millions years ago or even later, at the beginning of the Tertiary.[15] The radiation of herbaceous angiosperm occurred much later.[16]Yet, many fossil plants recognizable as belonging to modern families (including beech, oak, maple, and magnolia) appeared already at late Cretaceous.
Two bees on a flower head of Creeping Thistle, Cirsium arvense
It is generally assumed that the function of flowers, from the start, was to involve mobile animals in their reproduction processes. That is, pollen can be scattered even if the flower is not brightly coloredor oddly shaped in a way that attracts animals; however, by expending the energy required to create such traits, angiosperms can enlist the aid of animals and, thus, reproduce more efficiently.
Island genetics provides one proposed explanation for the sudden, fully developed appearance of flowering plants. Island genetics is believed to be a common source of speciation in general, especially when it comes to radical adaptations that seem to have required inferior transitional forms. Flowering plants may have evolved in an isolated setting like an island or island chain, where the plants bearing them were able to develop a highly specialized relationship with some specific animal (a wasp, for example). Such a relationship, with a hypothetical wasp carrying pollen from one plant to another much the way fig wasps do today, could result in the development of a high degree ofspecialization in both the plant(s) and their partners. Note that the wasp example is not incidental;bees, which, it is postulated, evolved specifically due to mutualistic plant relationships, are descended from wasps.
Animals are also involved in the distribution of seeds. Fruit, which is formed by the enlargement of flower parts, is frequently a seed-dispersal tool that attracts animals to eat or otherwise disturb it, incidentally scattering the seeds it contains (see frugivory). While many such mutualistic relationships remain too fragile to survive competition and to spread widely, flowering proved to be an unusually effective means of reproduction, spreading (whatever its origin) to become the dominant form of land plant life.
Flower ontogeny uses a combination of genes normally responsible for forming new shoots.[17] The most primitive flowers are thought to have had a variable number of flower parts, often separate from (but in contact with) each other. The flowers would have tended to grow in a spiral pattern, to be bisexual (in plants, this means both male and female parts on the same flower), and to be dominated by theovary (female part). As flowers grew more advanced, some variations developed parts fused together, with a much more specific number and design, and with either specific sexes per flower or plant, or at least "ovary-inferior".
Flower evolution continues to the present day; modern flowers have been so profoundly influenced by humans that some of them cannot be pollinated in nature. Many modern, domesticated flowers used to be simple weeds, which sprouted only when the ground was disturbed. Some of them tended to grow with human crops, perhaps already having symbiotic companion plant relationships with them, and the prettiest did not get plucked because of their beauty, developing a dependence upon and special adaptation to human affection.[18]
A few paleontologists have also come up with a theory that flowering plants, or angiosperms, might have evolved because of dinosaurs; in other words, they believe that dinosaurs "created" flowers. One of the theory's biggest proponents is Robert T. Bakker. He theorizes that herbivorous dinosaurs, with their eating habits, forced plants to find new ways to develop new adaptations, in order to avoid predation by herbivores.[citation needed]
[edit]Classification
Angiospermae
Amborella
Nymphaeales
Austrobaileyales
Mesangiospermae
magnoliids
Chloranthales
monocots
Ceratophyllum
eudicots
The phylogeny of the flowering plants, as of APG III (2009).[19]
Angiospermae
Amborella
Nymphaeales
Austrobaileyales
Mesangiospermae
monocots
Chloranthales
magnoliids
Ceratophyllum
eudicots
Alternative phylogeny (2010)[20]
There are eight groups of living angiosperms:
Amborella — a single species of shrub from New Caledonia
Nymphaeales — about 80 species[21] — water lilies and Hydatellaceae
Austrobaileyales — about 100 species[21] of woody plants from various parts of the world
Chloranthales — several dozen species of aromatic plants with toothed leaves
Magnoliidae — about 9,000 species,[21] characterized by trimerousflowers, pollen with one pore, and usually branching-veined leaves — for example magnolias, bay laurel, and black pepper
Monocotyledonae — about 70,000 species,[21] characterized by trimerous flowers, a single cotyledon, pollen with one pore, and usually parallel-veined leaves — for example grasses, orchids, and palms
Ceratophyllum — about 6 species[21] of aquatic plants, perhaps most familiar as aquarium plants
Eudicotyledonae — about 175,000 species,[21] characterized by 4- or 5-merous flowers, pollen with three pores, and usually branching-veined leaves — for example sunflowers, petunia, buttercup, apples and oaks
The exact relationship between these eight groups is not yet clear, although there is agreement that the first three groups to diverge from the ancestral angiosperm were Amborellales, Nymphaeales, and Austrobaileyales.[22]The term basal angiosperms refers to these three groups. The five other groups form the clade Mesangiospermae. The relationship between the three largest of these groups (magnoliids, monocots and eudicots) remains unclear. Some analyses make the magnoliids the first to diverge, others the monocots.[20] Ceratophyllum seems to group with the eudicots rather than with the monocots.
[edit]History of classification
From 1736, an illustration of Linnaean classification
The botanical term "Angiosperm", from the Ancient Greek a??e???, angeíon (receptacle, vessel) and sp??µa, (seed), was coined in the form Angiospermae by Paul Hermann in 1690, as the name of that one of his primary divisions of the plant kingdom. This included flowering plants possessing seeds enclosed in capsules, distinguished from his Gymnospermae, or flowering plants with achenial or schizo-carpic fruits, the whole fruit or each of its pieces being here regarded as a seed and naked. The term and its antonym were maintained by Carolus Linnaeus with the same sense, but with restricted application, in the names of the orders of his class Didynamia. Its use with any approach to its modern scope became possible only after 1827, when Robert Brown established the existence of truly naked ovules in the Cycadeae and Coniferae, and applied to them the name Gymnosperms. From that time onward, as long as these Gymnosperms were, as was usual, reckoned as dicotyledonous flowering plants, the term Angiosperm was used antithetically by botanical writers, with varying scope, as a group-name for other dicotyledonous plants.
Auxanometer: Device for measuring increase or rate of growth in plants
In 1851, Hofmeister discovered the changes occurring in the embryo-sac of flowering plants, and determined the correct relationships of these to the Cryptogamia. This fixed the position of Gymnosperms as a class distinct from Dicotyledons, and the term Angiosperm then gradually came to be accepted as the suitable designation for the whole of the flowering plants other than Gymnosperms, including the classes of Dicotyledons and Monocotyledons. This is the sense in which the term is used today.
In most taxonomies, the flowering plants are treated as a coherent group. The most popular descriptive name has been Angiospermae (Angiosperms), with Anthophyta ("flowering plants") a second choice. These names are not linked to any rank. The Wettstein systemand the Engler system use the name Angiospermae, at the assigned rank of subdivision. The Reveal system treated flowering plants as subdivision Magnoliophytina (Frohne & U. Jensen ex Reveal, Phytologia 79: 70 1996), but later split it to Magnoliopsida, Liliopsida, and Rosopsida. The Takhtajan system and Cronquist system treat this group at the rank ofdivision, leading to the name Magnoliophyta (from the family name Magnoliaceae). TheDahlgren system and Thorne system (1992) treat this group at the rank of class, leading to the name Magnoliopsida. The APG system of 1998, and the later 2003[23] and 2009[19]revisions, treat the flowering plants as a clade called angiosperms without a formal botanical name. However, a formal classification was published alongside the 2009 revision in which the flowering plants form the Subclass Magnoliidae.[24]
The internal classification of this group has undergone considerable revision. The Cronquist system, proposed by Arthur Cronquist in 1968 and published in its full form in 1981, is still widely used but is no longer believed to accurately reflect phylogeny. A consensus about how the flowering plants should be arranged has recently begun to emerge through the work of the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group(APG), which published an influential reclassification of the angiosperms in 1998. Updates incorporating more recent research were published as APG II in 2003[23] and as APG III in 2009.[19][25]
Monocot (left) and dicot seedlings
Traditionally, the flowering plants are divided into two groups, which in the Cronquist system are called Magnoliopsida (at the rank of class, formed from the family name Magnoliacae) and Liliopsida(at the rank of class, formed from the family name Liliaceae). Other descriptive names allowed by Article 16 of the ICBN include Dicotyledones or Dicotyledoneae, and Monocotyledones orMonocotyledoneae, which have a long history of use. In English a member of either group may be called a dicotyledon (plural dicotyledons) and monocotyledon (plural monocotyledons), or abbreviated, as dicot (plural dicots) and monocot (plural monocots). These names derive from the observation that the dicots most often have two cotyledons, or embryonic leaves, within each seed. The monocots usually have only one, but the rule is not absolute either way. From a diagnostic point of view, the number of cotyledons is neither a particularly handy nor a reliable character.
Recent studies, as by the APG, show that the monocots form a monophyletic group (clade) but that the dicots do not (they are paraphyletic). Nevertheless, the majority of dicot species do form a monophyletic group, called the eudicots or tricolpates. Of the remaining dicot species, most belong to a third major clade known as the Magnoliidae, containing about 9,000 species. The rest include a paraphyletic grouping of primitive species known collectively as the basal angiosperms, plus the families Ceratophyllaceae and Chloranthaceae.
[edit]Flowering plant diversity
A poster of twelve different species of flowers of the Asteraceae family
The number of species of flowering plants is estimated to be in the range of 250,000 to 400,000.[26][27][28] The number of families in APG (1998) was 462. In APG II[23] (2003) it is not settled; at maximum it is 457, but within this number there are 55 optional segregates, so that the minimum number of families in this system is 402. In APG III (2009) there are 415 families.[19]
The diversity of flowering plants is not evenly distributed. Nearly all species belong to the eudicot (75%), monocot (23%) and magnoliid (2%) clades. The remaining 5 clades contain a little over 250 species in total, i.e., less than 0.1% of flowering plant diversity, divided among 9 families.
The most diverse families of flowering plants, in their APG circumscriptions, in order of number of species, are:
Asteraceae or Compositae (daisy family): 23,600 species[29]
Orchidaceae (orchid family): 22,075 species[29]
Fabaceae or Leguminosae (pea family): 19,400[29]
Rubiaceae (madder family): 13,150[30]
Poaceae or Gramineae (grass family): 10,035[29]
Lamiaceae or Labiatae (mint family): 7,173[29]
Euphorbiaceae (spurge family): 5,735[29]
Melastomataceae (melastome family): 5,005[29]
Myrtaceae (myrtle family): 4,620[29]
Apocynaceae (dogbane family): 4,555[29]
In the list above (showing only the 10 largest families), the Orchidaceae and Poaceae are monocot families; the others are eudicot families.
[edit]Vascular anatomy
Cross-section of a stem of the angiosperm flax:
1. Pith,
2. Protoxylem,
3. Xylem I,
4. Phloem I,
5. Sclerenchyma (bast fibre),
6. Cortex,
7. Epidermis
The amount and complexity of tissue-formation in flowering plants exceeds that of gymnosperms. The vascular bundles of the stem are arranged such that the xylem andphloem form concentric rings.
In the dicotyledons, the bundles in the very young stem are arranged in an open ring, separating a central pith from an outer cortex. In each bundle, separating the xylem and phloem, is a layer of meristem or active formative tissue known as cambium. By the formation of a layer of cambium between the bundles (interfascicular cambium), a complete ring is formed, and a regular periodical increase in thickness results from the development of xylem on the inside and phloem on the outside. The soft phloem becomes crushed, but the hard wood persists and forms the bulk of the stem and branches of the woody perennial. Owing to differences in the character of the elements produced at the beginning and end of the season, the wood is marked out in transverse section into concentric rings, one for each season of growth, called annual rings.
Among the monocotyledons, the bundles are more numerous in the young stem and are scattered through the ground tissue. They contain no cambium and once formed the stem increases in diameter only in exceptional cases.
[edit]The flower, fruit, and seed
[edit]Flowers
Main articles: Flower and Plant sexuality
A collection of flowers forming an inflorescence
The characteristic feature of angiosperms is the flower. Flowers show remarkable variation in form and elaboration, and provide the most trustworthy external characteristics for establishing relationships among angiosperm species. The function of the flower is to ensure fertilization of the ovule and development of fruitcontaining seeds. The floral apparatus may arise terminally on a shoot or from the axil of a leaf (where the petioleattaches to the stem). Occasionally, as in violets, a flower arises singly in the axil of an ordinary foliage-leaf. More typically, the flower-bearing portion of the plant is sharply distinguished from the foliage-bearing or vegetative portion, and forms a more or less elaborate branch-system called an inflorescence.
There are two kinds of reproductive cells produced by flowers. Microspores, which will divide to become pollen grains, are the "male" cells and are borne in the stamens (or microsporophylls). The "female" cells called megaspores, which will divide to become the egg cell (megagametogenesis), are contained in the ovule and enclosed in the carpel (or megasporophyll).
The flower may consist only of these parts, as in willow, where each flower comprises only a few stamens or two carpels. Usually, other structures are present and serve to protect the sporophylls and to form an envelope attractive to pollinators. The individual members of these surrounding structures are known as sepals and petals(or tepals in flowers such as Magnolia where sepals and petals are not distinguishable from each other). The outer series (calyx of sepals) is usually green and leaf-like, and functions to protect the rest of the flower, especially the bud. The inner series (corolla of petals) is, in general, white or brightly colored, and is more delicate in structure. It functions to attract insect or bird pollinators. Attraction is effected by color, scent, andnectar, which may be secreted in some part of the flower. The characteristics that attract pollinators account for the popularity of flowers and flowering plants among humans.
While the majority of flowers are perfect or hermaphrodite (having both pollen and ovule producing parts in the same flower structure), flowering plants have developed numerous morphological and physiological mechanisms to reduce or prevent self-fertilization. Heteromorphic flowers have short carpels and long stamens, or vice versa, so animal pollinators cannot easily transfer pollen to the pistil (receptive part of the carpel). Homomorphic flowers may employ a biochemical (physiological) mechanism called self-incompatibility to discriminate between self- and non-self pollen grains. In other species, the male and female parts are morphologically separated, developing on different flowers.
[edit]Fertilization and embryogenesis
Main articles: Fertilization and Plant embryogenesis
Angiosperm life cycle
Double fertilization refers to a process in which two sperm cells fertilize cells in the ovary. This process begins when a pollen grain adheres to the stigma of the pistil (female reproductive structure), germinates, and grows a long pollen tube. While this pollen tube is growing, a haploid generative cell travels down the tube behind the tube nucleus. The generative cell divides by mitosis to produce two haploid (n) sperm cells. As the pollen tube grows, it makes its way from the stigma, down the style and into the ovary. Here the pollen tube reaches the micropyle of the ovule and digests its way into one of the synergids, releasing its contents (which include the sperm cells). The synergid that the cells were released into degenerates and one sperm makes its way to fertilize the egg cell, producing a diploid (2n) zygote. The second sperm cell fuses with both central cell nuclei, producing a triploid (3n) cell. As the zygote develops into an embryo, the triploid cell develops into the endosperm, which serves as the embryo's food supply. The ovary now will develop into fruit and the ovule will develop into seed.
[edit]Fruit and seed
Main articles: Seed and Fruit
The fruit of the Aesculus or Horse Chestnut tree
As the development of embryo and endosperm proceeds within the embryo sac, the sac wall enlarges and combines with the nucellus (which is likewise enlarging) and the integument to form the seed coat. The ovary wall develops to form the fruit or pericarp, whose form is closely associated with the manner of distribution of the seed.
Frequently, the influence of fertilization is felt beyond the ovary, and other parts of the flower take part in the formation of the fruit, e.g., the floral receptacle in the apple, strawberry, and others.
The character of the seed coat bears a definite relation to that of the fruit. They protect the embryo and aid in dissemination; they may also directly promote germination. Among plants with indehiscent fruits, in general, the fruit provides protection for the embryo and secures dissemination. In this case, the seed coat is only slightly developed. If the fruit is dehiscentand the seed is exposed, in general, the seed-coat is well developed, and must discharge the functions otherwise executed by the fruit.
[edit]Economic importance
Question book-new.svg
This section does not cite anyreferences or sources. (April 2012)
Agriculture is almost entirely dependent upon angiosperms, which provide virtually all plant-based food, and also provide a significant amount of livestock feed. Of all the families of plants, the Poaceae, or grass family (grains), is by far the most important, providing the bulk of all feedstocks (rice, corn — maize, wheat, barley, rye, oats, pearl millet, sugar cane, sorghum). The Fabaceae, or legume family, comes in second place. Also of high importance are the Solanaceae, or nightshade family (potatoes, tomatoes, and peppers, among others), the Cucurbitaceae, or gourd family (also including pumpkins and melons), the Brassicaceae, or mustard plant family (including rapeseed and the innumerable varieties of the cabbage species Brassica oleracea), and the Apiaceae, or parsley family. Many of our fruits come from the Rutaceae, or rue family (including oranges, lemons, grapefruits, etc.), and the Rosaceae, or rose family (including apples, pears, cherries, apricots, plums, etc.).
In some parts of the world, certain single species assume paramount importance because of their variety of uses, for example the coconut (Cocos nucifera) on Pacific atolls, and the olive (Olea europaea) in the Mediterranean region.
Flowering plants also provide economic resources in the form of wood, paper, fiber (cotton, flax, and hemp, among others), medicines (digitalis, camphor), decorative and landscaping plants, and many other uses. The main area in which they are surpassed by other plants is timber production.
[edit]See also
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Flower garden
A flower garden is any garden where flowers are grown for decorative purposes. Because flowers bloom at varying times of the year, and some plants are annual, dying each winter, the design of flower gardens can take into consideration to maintain a sequence of bloom and even of consistent color combinations, through varying seasons.
Flower color is an important feature of both the herbaceous border and the mixed border that includes shrubs as well as herbaceous plants, and of bedding-out schemes limited to colorful annuals. Flower gardens are sometimes tied in function to other kinds of gardens, like knot gardens or herb gardens, many herbs also having decorative function, and some decorative flowers being edible.
One simpler alternative to the designed flower garden is the "wildflower" seed mix, with assortments of seeds which will create a bed that contains flowers of various blooming seasons, so that some portion of them should always be in bloom. The best mixtures even include combinations of perennial andbiennials, which may not bloom until the following year, and also annuals that are "self-seeding", so they will return, creating a permanent flowerbed.
Another, even more recent trend is the "flower garden in a box", where the entire design of a flower garden is pre-packaged, with separate packets of each kind of flower, and a careful layout to be followed to create the proposed pattern of color in the garden-to-be.
History
Many, if not most, plants considered decorative flowers originated as weeds, which if attractive enough would sometimes be tolerated by farmers because of their appeal. This led to an artificial selection process, producing ever-prettier (to humans) flowers. This is thought to have occurred for the entire history of agriculture, perhaps even slightly earlier, when people tended to favor naturally occurring food-gathering spots. This may also explain why many flowers function as companion plants to more useful agricultural plants; they had evolved that symbiotic relationship with the food plants before either was domesticated, and therefore was found in the same area, convenient to be selected as an attractive plant.
Once domesticated, though, most flowers were grown either separately or as part of gardens having some other primary function. In the West, the idea of gardens dedicated to flowers did not become common until the 19th century, though in fact many modern gardens are indeed flower gardens. Flower gardens are, indeed, a key factor in modern landscape design and even architecture, especially for large businesses, some of which pay to have large flower gardens torn out and replaced entirely each season, in order to keep the color patterns consistent.
[edit]Cutting garden
A functional garden used to grow flowers for indoor use rather than outdoor display is known as a cutting garden. It is usually only a feature of large residences.
The cutting garden is typically placed in a fertile and sunlight position out of public view and is not artistically arranged, as it contains flowers for cutting. The cutting garden may comprise a herb garden and ornamental vegetables as well.
Flower color is an important feature of both the herbaceous border and the mixed border that includes shrubs as well as herbaceous plants, and of bedding-out schemes limited to colorful annuals. Flower gardens are sometimes tied in function to other kinds of gardens, like knot gardens or herb gardens, many herbs also having decorative function, and some decorative flowers being edible.
One simpler alternative to the designed flower garden is the "wildflower" seed mix, with assortments of seeds which will create a bed that contains flowers of various blooming seasons, so that some portion of them should always be in bloom. The best mixtures even include combinations of perennial andbiennials, which may not bloom until the following year, and also annuals that are "self-seeding", so they will return, creating a permanent flowerbed.
Another, even more recent trend is the "flower garden in a box", where the entire design of a flower garden is pre-packaged, with separate packets of each kind of flower, and a careful layout to be followed to create the proposed pattern of color in the garden-to-be.
History
Many, if not most, plants considered decorative flowers originated as weeds, which if attractive enough would sometimes be tolerated by farmers because of their appeal. This led to an artificial selection process, producing ever-prettier (to humans) flowers. This is thought to have occurred for the entire history of agriculture, perhaps even slightly earlier, when people tended to favor naturally occurring food-gathering spots. This may also explain why many flowers function as companion plants to more useful agricultural plants; they had evolved that symbiotic relationship with the food plants before either was domesticated, and therefore was found in the same area, convenient to be selected as an attractive plant.
Once domesticated, though, most flowers were grown either separately or as part of gardens having some other primary function. In the West, the idea of gardens dedicated to flowers did not become common until the 19th century, though in fact many modern gardens are indeed flower gardens. Flower gardens are, indeed, a key factor in modern landscape design and even architecture, especially for large businesses, some of which pay to have large flower gardens torn out and replaced entirely each season, in order to keep the color patterns consistent.
[edit]Cutting garden
A functional garden used to grow flowers for indoor use rather than outdoor display is known as a cutting garden. It is usually only a feature of large residences.
The cutting garden is typically placed in a fertile and sunlight position out of public view and is not artistically arranged, as it contains flowers for cutting. The cutting garden may comprise a herb garden and ornamental vegetables as well.
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