It is a good example of just how tricky Nature can be. The photo below is much clearer. If you click on it to enlarge it you can see the five petals distinctly. Sometimes, unless you have access to the original baby seed leaves of a flower, things can get pretty tricky. Portulacas above are often called Moss Roses. They are Dicots because they have combinations of five petals. The singles have five petals and the doubles may have ten or more.
But they do look so much like Wild or Single Roses that it's easy to see how they came to be considered Moss Roses. The true Moss Rose is an actual Centifolia Rose. See more about them on the Portulacas Page. Here you will see just why these hardy, drought tolerant little plants are so popular. Besides the Angiosperms flowering plants and the Gymnosperms cone bearing plants , in the Plant Kingdom there are the Bryophytes: Mosses, Liverworts and Hornworts; and the Pteridophytes ferns, horsetails and club mosses.
The last two groups still use spores to reproduce. Spores brown can be seen on the backs of fern fronds in Spring. This is a type of sexual reproduction. And finally Legumes are often classed as another member of the Plant Kingdom all by themselves. Examples are beans, peas, and lentils. The Angiosperms are the Flowering Plants and there are around , to , different flower types.
Fortunately they can be divided into two groups: Monocots and Dicots. Note that it is only the Flowering Plants that are Monocots or Dicots. Other plants such as Mosses and Ferns are neither. Monocots have one Cotyledon the seed capsule where the seed develops and dicots have two.
This means that when the seed develops and grows, it will send up either one Monocot or two Dicot leaves. I used to think that Dicots had two seeds. Monocots form one quarter of all the Angiosperms and Dicots the rest. Roses are Dicots. Click here to see the Wild Rose. There are several ways to distinguish between Monocots and Dicots. The leaves of Monocots have parallel veins that begin at the base of the leaf and end at the tip without any branching Lily family.
The Dicots' veins start at the bottom and branch out in an ordered network all over the leaf as in a rose. And of course, if you are there at the beginning when the seedlings push up through the soil, you can tell just by looking at them. The Monocot seed has one leaf and the Dicot has two, as in the following photos:. Monocots may have millions of individual Fibrous roots.
There is no main central root. Their leaves are similar in that the veins do not branch out from a central vein, but run parallel to each other. Obviously, the roots aren't parallel but they can still cover a huge area. Dicots have a main Tap root with many smaller roots branching off it. Just like their leaves which have a central vein with other veins branching off it.
The Dicot root system can cover a huge area to get the essential nutrients for the plant. Lily of the Valley. Another plant to die for. I honestly would have thought that this plant was definitely a Dicot because its leaves are so big and fat. But don't be fooled. This is a great photo where you can definitely see that although the leaves are broad, the leaf veins are parallel. Definitely a Monocot.
So many of our delightful Spring Bulbs are Monocots, usually with narrow blade-like leaves. The Rose Leaf, on the other hand, is a Dicot because it has a main vein with other veins branching off it.
The Hippeastrum. In this beautiful photo of a Hippeastrum Amaryllis Flower, you can clearly see that it has six petals which are actually three Petals and three Tepals - see these on the Parts of a Flower Page - and narrow leaves with parallel veins, making it a Monocot.
The easiest way? Typically, monocots have petals that come in multiples of three, while dicots have petals that come in multiples of four or five. There are many types of monocots found throughout the world.
The grasses comprise one of the largest groups. Also called poaceaes, there are over 9, species in this family of plants. Although we may not typically think of grasses as flowers, these plants actually have small flowers at the tips. A number of plants that we may not actually realize are grasses also belong to this group, including corn, wheat and rice. Orchids and other members of the orchidaceae family are also monocats, with the 20, to 25, species making up about 30 percent of all monocats.
Orchids are distinctive because of their stamens and pistils, which are responsible for reproduction for the flower. Like most monocats, they have petals in groups of three. This makes them a dicot. Geranium flowers have five petals so they are dicots. In the center, they have five or 10 stamens. The pistil has five sections that split apart when the fruit matures. Gail Delaney is a writer in South Dakota and has articles published online at various websites. She is the garden editor for BellaOnline, with years of gardening experience.
Being the caretaker of her parents led her in the direction of medical issues, especially natural remedies. Share this article. Related Articles.
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