On 4/27/19 11:31 AM, Alfred Falk wrote:
T wrote in :

Hi All,

My Rosemary plant has flowers!

https://ibb.co/p2yhHJX

Coniferous (pine trees) plants have flowers? What am I missing?

An elementary education in botany, perhaps?

Looking at the general form of a plant is generally not very helpful in
understanding its relation to other plants. Traditionally we looked at
their reproductive processes and morphology. Today genetic (DNA) analyses
are used. These mostly refine the older work, but make significant
correctlons.
What follows is a _very_ sketchy family tree relevant to your question.

All plants
- many groups (inluding mosses and ferns) that do not use seeds to
reproduce
- Seed-bearing (flowering) plants
- - Gymnosperms ("naked seeds")
- - - several groups that I'm not going to get into
- - - Cedars, junipers and bunch of others
- - - Pines, spruces, firs, etc;. "Conifers". They have two kinds of
cones: one that produces pollen, and the other produces ovules that receive
the pollen. The latter form the familiar seed cones when pollinated.
- - Angiosperms ("enclosed seeds", "flowering plants"
- - - Monocots (seeds have one cotolydon)
- - - - grasses
- - - - orchids
- - - - iris, tulips, and others
- - - - more groups
- - - Dicots (seeds have two cotolydons)
- - - - many groups that include most of the plants with showy flowers,
each group identifier by a their own particular flower structure.
- - - - mint family (have a particular flower structure)
- - - - - rosemary

Hope this makes some sense. If I've used unfamiliar terms, check Wikipedia.

They are awfully pretty!

Yes, they are.



It thought conifers were all monocots: parallel
veins on their leaves (needles). Double checking,
Rosemary is actually a dicot. Its flowers have
five pedals. (Monocots have three; dicots have
four or five.) I am going to have to count the
pedals! So Rosemary is not actually a conifer.

Looking up conifers, they are not classified are either
monocot or dicot.

It was a major evolutionary step when flowering plants
came along.

Conifers are not classified as "angiosperms" (flowering
plants), so they don't actually have flowers.