39-457: Centaurea crassifolia Centaurea spathulata Palaeocyanus crassifolius Dostál Cheirolophus crassifolius , the Maltese centaury , Maltese rock-centaury or Widnet il-Baħar , is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae . It is endemic to Malta , where it has been the national plant of Malta since 1973. Its natural habitats are cliffs and coastal valleys . It
78-408: A model organism to understand how genes control the growth and development of plant structures. NASA predicts that space stations or space colonies will one day rely on plants for life support . Scientific advances in genetic engineering led to developments in crops. Genetically modified crops introduce new traits to plants which they do not have naturally. These can bring benefits such as
117-2088: A molecular phylogeny of plants placed the flowering plants in their evolutionary context: Bryophytes [REDACTED] Lycophytes [REDACTED] Ferns [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] The main groups of living angiosperms are: Amborellales [REDACTED] 1 sp. New Caledonia shrub Nymphaeales [REDACTED] c. 80 spp. water lilies & allies Austrobaileyales [REDACTED] c. 100 spp. woody plants Magnoliids [REDACTED] c. 10,000 spp. 3-part flowers, 1-pore pollen, usu. branch-veined leaves Chloranthales [REDACTED] 77 spp. Woody, apetalous Monocots [REDACTED] c. 70,000 spp. 3-part flowers, 1 cotyledon , 1-pore pollen, usu. parallel-veined leaves Ceratophyllales [REDACTED] c. 6 spp. aquatic plants Eudicots [REDACTED] c. 175,000 spp. 4- or 5-part flowers, 3-pore pollen, usu. branch-veined leaves Amborellales Melikyan, Bobrov & Zaytzeva 1999 Nymphaeales Salisbury ex von Berchtold & Presl 1820 Austrobaileyales Takhtajan ex Reveal 1992 Chloranthales Mart. 1835 Canellales Cronquist 1957 Piperales von Berchtold & Presl 1820 Magnoliales de Jussieu ex von Berchtold & Presl 1820 Laurales de Jussieu ex von Berchtold & Presl 1820 Acorales Link 1835 Alismatales Brown ex von Berchtold & Presl 1820 Petrosaviales Takhtajan 1997 Dioscoreales Brown 1835 Pandanales Brown ex von Berchtold & Presl 1820 Liliales Perleb 1826 Asparagales Link 1829 Arecales Bromhead 1840 Poales Small 1903 Zingiberales Grisebach 1854 Commelinales de Mirbel ex von Berchtold & Presl 1820 Plant product Human uses of plants include both practical uses, such as for food , clothing , and medicine , and symbolic uses, such as in art , mythology and literature . Materials derived from plants are collectively called plant products . Edible plants have long been
156-706: A decrease in the use of harmful pesticides, by building in qualities such as insect resistance and herbicide tolerance. The ability of trees to graft is occasionally exploited by tree shaping to create living root bridges in Meghalaya and Nagaland states in India and on the islands of Sumatra and Java in Indonesia. The aerial roots of rubber fig trees, Ficus elastica , are used to form suspension bridges across mountain streams. Plants appear in art, either to illustrate their botanical appearance, or for
195-712: A giant tree named Hometree, the sacred gathering place of the humanoid Na'vi tribe; the interconnected tree, tribe and planet are threatened by mining: the tribe and the film's hero fight to save them. Trees are common subjects in poetry , including Joyce Kilmer 's 1913 lyric poem named " Trees ". Flowers, similarly, are the subjects of many poems by poets such as William Blake , Robert Frost , and Rabindranath Tagore . Plants figure prominently in mythology and religion, where they symbolise themes such as fertility , growth, immortality and rebirth , and may be more or less magical. Thus in Latvian mythology , Austras koks
234-630: A hallucinogenic in Gabon by secret societies for initiation ceremonies. Magic plants are found, too, in Serbian mythology , where the raskovnik is supposed to be able to open any lock . In Buddhist symbolism , both the lotus and the Bodhi Tree are significant. The lotus is one of the Ashtamangala (eight auspicious signs) shared between Buddhism , Jainism and Hinduism , representing
273-768: A primary source of basic chemicals , both for their medicinal and physiological effects, and for the industrial synthesis of a vast array of organic chemicals. Many hundreds of medicines are derived from plants, both traditional medicines used in herbalism and chemical substances purified from plants or first identified in them, sometimes by ethnobotanical search, and then synthesised for use in modern medicine. Modern medicines derived from plants include aspirin , taxol , morphine , quinine , reserpine , colchicine , digitalis and vincristine . Plants used in herbalism include ginkgo , echinacea , feverfew , and Saint John's wort . The pharmacopoeia of Dioscorides , De Materia Medica , describing some 600 medicinal plants,
312-668: A source of nutrition for humans , and the reliable provision of food through agriculture and horticulture is the basis of civilization since the Neolithic Revolution . Medicinal herbs were and still remain to be the key ingredients of many traditional medicine practices, as well as being raw materials for some modern pharmaceuticals . The study of plant uses by native peoples is ethnobotany , while economic botany focuses on modern cultivated plants. Plants are also used as feedstock for many industrial products including timber , paper and textiles , as well as
351-610: A total of 64 angiosperm orders and 416 families. 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 five clades contain a little over 250 species in total; i.e. less than 0.1% of flowering plant diversity, divided among nine families. The 25 most species-rich of 443 families, containing over 166,000 species between them in their APG circumscriptions, are: The botanical term "angiosperm", from Greek words angeíon ( ἀγγεῖον 'bottle, vessel') and spérma ( σπέρμα 'seed'),
390-421: A wide range of chemicals. Ornamental plants give millions of people pleasure through gardening , and floriculture is a popular pastime among many. Viticulture and winemaking can provide both culinary and economic values to society. In art, mythology, religion , literature and film , plants play important roles, symbolising themes such as fertility , growth, purity, and rebirth . In architecture and
429-858: Is starting to impact plants and is likely to cause many species to become extinct by 2100. Angiosperms are terrestrial vascular plants; like the gymnosperms, they have roots , stems , leaves , and seeds . They differ from other seed plants in several ways. The largest angiosperms are Eucalyptus gum trees of Australia, and Shorea faguetiana , dipterocarp rainforest trees of Southeast Asia, both of which can reach almost 100 metres (330 ft) in height. The smallest are Wolffia duckweeds which float on freshwater, each plant less than 2 millimetres (0.08 in) across. Considering their method of obtaining energy, some 99% of flowering plants are photosynthetic autotrophs , deriving their energy from sunlight and using it to create molecules such as sugars . The remainder are parasitic , whether on fungi like
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#1732787785847468-637: Is a tree which grows from the start of the Sun's daily journey across the sky. A different cosmic tree is Yggdrasil , the World tree of Norse mythology , on which Odin hung. Different again is the barnacle tree, believed in the Middle Ages to have barnacles that opened to reveal geese , a story which may perhaps have started from an observation of goose barnacles growing on driftwood . Greek mythology mentions many plants and flowers, where for example
507-558: Is cultivated due to its national importance. This Cardueae article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Flowering plant Basal angiosperms Core angiosperms Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits , and form the clade Angiospermae ( / ˌ æ n dʒ i ə ˈ s p ər m iː / ). The term 'angiosperm' is derived from the Greek words ἀγγεῖον / angeion ('container, vessel') and σπέρμα / sperma ('seed'), meaning that
546-479: Is derived from only 30 species. The major staples include cereals such as rice and wheat , starchy roots and tubers such as cassava and potato , and legumes such as peas and beans . Vegetable oils such as olive oil provide lipids , while fruit and vegetables contribute vitamins and minerals to the diet. Plants grown as industrial crops are the source of a wide range of products used in manufacturing, sometimes so intensively as to risk harm to
585-404: Is threatened by habitat loss . It is scarce but widespread in the wild on the western cliffs of Malta, rare on the southern cliffs of Gozo, but frequent as a cultivated species in roundabouts. It is quite common in the limits of Wied Babu in the south east of Malta. It was first described by Stefano Zerafa, around 1830, as the only species of the monotypic genus Palaeocyanus . However, around
624-491: The Alismatales grow in marine environments, spreading with rhizomes that grow through the mud in sheltered coastal waters. Some specialised angiosperms are able to flourish in extremely acid or alkaline habitats. The sundews , many of which live in nutrient-poor acid bogs , are carnivorous plants , able to derive nutrients such as nitrate from the bodies of trapped insects. Other flowers such as Gentiana verna ,
663-731: The Ardabil Carpet and ten-pointed Persian ceramic star tiles, influencing the decorative arts in the Western world in such forms as the Rococo and later the Arts and Crafts movement. Both real and fictitious plants play a wide variety of roles in literature and film . Plants' roles may be evil, as with the triffids , carnivorous plants with a whip-like poisonous sting as well as mobility provided by three foot-like appendages, from John Wyndham 's 1951 science fiction novel The Day of
702-738: The Shire with its happy associations, and the malevolent Old Man Willow in the Old Forest . Trees feature in many of Ursula K. Le Guin 's books, including the forest world of Athshe and the Immanent Grove on Roke in the Earthsea series , to such an extent that in her introduction to her collection The Wind's Twelve Quarters , she admits to "a certain obsession with trees" and describes herself as "the most arboreal science fiction writer". James Cameron 's 2009 film Avatar features
741-751: The decorative arts , plants provide many themes, such as Islamic arabesques and the acanthus forms carved on to classical Corinthian order column capitals. Culture consists of the social behaviour and norms found in human societies and transmitted through social learning . Cultural universals in all human societies include expressive forms like art , music , dance , ritual , religion , and technologies like tool usage , cooking , shelter , and clothing . The concept of material culture covers physical expressions such as technology, architecture and art, whereas immaterial culture includes principles of social organization , mythology , philosophy , literature , and science . This article describes
780-454: The lotus tree bears a fruit that causes a pleasant drowsiness, while moly is a magic herb mentioned by Homer in the Odyssey with a black root and white blossoms. The mandrake is hallucinogenic and its roots can resemble a human figure, so it has long been used in magic , and is still used in contemporary paganism such as Wicca and Odinism . Tabernanthe iboga is used as
819-460: The orchids for part or all of their life-cycle, or on other plants , either wholly like the broomrapes, Orobanche , or partially like the witchweeds, Striga . In terms of their environment, flowering plants are cosmopolitan, occupying a wide range of habitats on land, in fresh water and in the sea. On land, they are the dominant plant group in every habitat except for frigid moss-lichen tundra and coniferous forest . The seagrasses in
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#1732787785847858-481: The seeds are enclosed within a fruit. The group was formerly called Magnoliophyta . Angiosperms are by far the most diverse group of land plants with 64 orders , 416 families , approximately 13,000 known genera and 300,000 known species . They include all forbs (flowering plants without a woody stem ), grasses and grass-like plants, a vast majority of broad-leaved trees , shrubs and vines , and most aquatic plants . Angiosperms are distinguished from
897-892: The "Big Five" extinction events in Earth's history, only the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event had occurred while angiosperms dominated plant life on the planet. Today, the Holocene extinction affects all kingdoms of complex life on Earth, and conservation measures are necessary to protect plants in their habitats in the wild ( in situ ), or failing that, ex situ in seed banks or artificial habitats like botanic gardens . Otherwise, around 40% of plant species may become extinct due to human actions such as habitat destruction , introduction of invasive species , unsustainable logging , land clearing and overharvesting of medicinal or ornamental plants . Further, climate change
936-641: The Triffids , and subsequent films and radio plays. J. R. R. Tolkien 's Middle-earth makes use of many named kinds of plant , including the healing herb athelas the yellow star-flower elanor which grows in special places such as Cerin Amroth in Lothlórien , and the tall mallorn tree of the elves. Tolkien names several individual trees of significance in the narrative, including the Party Tree in
975-455: The basis of a multibillion-dollar per year tourism industry, which includes travel to historic gardens , national parks , rainforests , forests with colorful autumn leaves, and festivals such as Japan's and America's cherry blossom festivals . There are also art forms specializing in the arrangement of cut or living plants, such as bonsai , ikebana , and the arrangement of cut or dried flowers. Ornamental plants have sometimes changed
1014-562: The capitals of Ancient Egyptian columns, which were carved to resemble either the Egyptian white lotus or the papyrus . Ancient Greek columns of the Corinthian order are decorated with acanthus leaves. Islamic art , too, makes frequent use of plant motifs and patterns, including on column capitals . These designs became increasingly elaborate and stylised, appearing as complex arabesque and geometric motifs in objects such as
1053-408: The course of history, as in tulipomania . Basic biological research has often been done with plants. In genetics , the breeding of pea plants allowed Gregor Mendel to derive the basic laws governing inheritance, and examination of chromosomes in maize allowed Barbara McClintock to demonstrate their connection to inherited traits. The plant Arabidopsis thaliana is used in laboratories as
1092-818: The dominant group of plants across the planet. Agriculture is almost entirely dependent on angiosperms, and a small number of flowering plant families supply nearly all plant-based food and livestock feed. Rice , maize and wheat provide half of the world's staple calorie intake, and all three plants are cereals from the Poaceae family (colloquially known as grasses). Other families provide important industrial plant products such as wood , paper and cotton , and supply numerous ingredients for beverages , sugar production , traditional medicine and modern pharmaceuticals . Flowering plants are also commonly grown for decorative purposes , with certain flowers playing significant cultural roles in many societies. Out of
1131-466: The environment. Nonfood products include essential oils , natural dyes , pigments, waxes, resins , tannins , alkaloids, amber and cork . Products derived from plants include soaps, shampoos, perfumes, cosmetics, paint, varnish, turpentine, rubber, latex , lubricants, linoleum, plastics, inks, and gums . Renewable fuels from plants include firewood , peat and other biofuels . The fossil fuels coal , petroleum and natural gas are derived from
1170-659: The flowering plants as an unranked clade without a formal Latin name (angiosperms). A formal classification was published alongside the 2009 revision in which the flowering plants rank as the subclass Magnoliidae. From 1998, the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (APG) has reclassified the angiosperms, with updates in the APG II system in 2003, the APG III system in 2009, and the APG IV system in 2016. In 2019,
1209-518: The manner of vines or lianas . The number of species of flowering plants is estimated to be in the range of 250,000 to 400,000. This compares to around 12,000 species of moss and 11,000 species of pteridophytes . The APG system seeks to determine the number of families , mostly by molecular phylogenetics . In the 2009 APG III there were 415 families. The 2016 APG IV added five new orders (Boraginales, Dilleniales, Icacinales, Metteniusales and Vahliales), along with some new families, for
Cheirolophus crassifolius - Misplaced Pages Continue
1248-464: The many roles played by plants in human culture. Humans depend on plants for food , either directly or as feed for domestic animals . Agriculture deals with the production of food crops, and has played a key role in the history of world civilizations . Agriculture includes agronomy for arable crops , horticulture for vegetables and fruit, and forestry for timber. About 7,000 species of plant have been used for food, though most of today's food
1287-567: The other major seed plant clade, the gymnosperms , by having flowers , xylem consisting of vessel elements instead of tracheids , endosperm within their seeds, and fruits that completely envelop the seeds. The ancestors of flowering plants diverged from the common ancestor of all living gymnosperms before the end of the Carboniferous , over 300 million years ago. In the Cretaceous , angiosperms diversified explosively , becoming
1326-755: The purposes of the artist, which may include decoration or symbolism , often religious. For example, the Virgin Mary was compared by the Venerable Bede to a lily , the white petals denoting purity of body, while the yellow anthers signified the radiant light of the soul; accordingly, European portraits of the Virgin's Annunciation may depict a vase of white lilies in her room to indicate her attributes. Plants are also often used as backgrounds or features in portraits, and as main subjects in still lifes . Architectural designs resembling plants appear in
1365-604: The remains of aquatic organisms including phytoplankton in geological time . Structural materials and fibres from plants are used to construct dwellings and to manufacture clothing. Wood is used not only for buildings, boats, and furniture, but also for smaller items such as musical instruments , hand tools, and sports equipment. Wood is pulped to make paper and cardboard. Cloth is often made from cotton , flax , ramie or synthetic fibres such as rayon and acetate derived from plant cellulose . Thread used to sew cloth likewise comes in large part from cotton. Plants are
1404-568: The spring gentian, are adapted to the alkaline conditions found on calcium -rich chalk and limestone , which give rise to often dry topographies such as limestone pavement . As for their growth habit , the flowering plants range from small, soft herbaceous plants , often living as annuals or biennials that set seed and die after one growing season, to large perennial woody trees that may live for many centuries and grow to many metres in height. Some species grow tall without being self-supporting like trees by climbing on other plants in
1443-403: The year 2000, it was transferred to Cheirolophus , in the light of genetic studies done in that year. The name Cheirolophus means hand-crest, referring to the hand-shaped bract tips of the most species in this genus, while crassifolius mean thick leaves. The leaves are succulent and spoon shaped. The variety serratifolia (serrated leaves) is very rare, and only known from Gozo . This species
1482-483: Was coined in the form "Angiospermae" by Paul Hermann in 1690, including only flowering plants whose seeds were enclosed in capsules. The term angiosperm fundamentally changed in meaning in 1827 with Robert Brown , when angiosperm came to mean a seed plant with enclosed ovules. In 1851, with Wilhelm Hofmeister 's work on embryo-sacs, Angiosperm came to have its modern meaning of all the flowering plants including Dicotyledons and Monocotyledons. The APG system treats
1521-789: Was written between 50 and 70 AD and remained in use in Europe and the Middle East until around 1600 AD; it was the precursor of all modern pharmacopoeias. Pesticides derived from plants include nicotine , rotenone , strychnine and pyrethrins . Plants such as tobacco , cannabis , opium poppy , and coca yield psychotropic chemicals. Poisons from plants include atropine , ricin , hemlock and curare , though many of these also have medicinal uses. Thousands of plant species are cultivated for aesthetic purposes as well as to provide shade, modify temperatures, reduce wind, abate noise, provide privacy, and prevent soil erosion . Plants are
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