Did you read the warning to the website and its various family trees it
presents?

http://www.mobot.org/MOBOT/Research/APweb/

!!IMPORTANT - WARNING TO ALL USERS!!

v All clades are hypotheses of relationships, and as hypotheses they may
be overturned. Even though I have for the most part been conservative,
changes in our ideas of relationships, and hence in the clades we talk
about, are particularly likely in parts of Caryophyllales and Malpighiales.
Taxa whose relationships are still largely unknown or only partly known -
apparently not many, although we must expect to find a few more seriously
misplaced genera - should also not be forgotten. Thus some changes are to be
expected, but changes are neither a defect of cladistics, nor a necessary
consequence of the use of molecular data.

************************

Cladistics is statistical and only as good as the number of different
character states used and the significance given to them. If certain ones
are included or excluded the resulting trees can differ substantially (and
they do).

This is the more realistic tree but it still leaves several orders hanging.

http://www.mobot.org/MOBOT/Research/...eltreemap.html

You have to realize that most of the trees are preliminary and tentative and
not all of the families (genera) are thoroughly studied and the trees are
already out-of-date. Most of what is posted on the Internet is second hand
info taken from old papers. Of course all if this remains meaningless and
mystical if you have no idea what the plants in the various orders actually
look like.

1. The primitive trimerous dicots. (maybe call them "Predicots" or
"Protodicots"?)
Amborellales
Nymphaeales
Austrobaileyales
Chloranthales
Magnoliales
Laurales
Cannellales
Piperales
Ceratophyllales

2. Monocots.
Acorales
Alismatales
Asparagales (Many of the families listed are amorphous with many of the
genera misplaced or considered to be of uncertain affinity. Several of the
families have been defined differently is recent papers.)
Dioscoreales
Liliales
Pandanales
Arecales
Poales
Commelinales (Haemodoraceae is polymorphic)
Zingiberales

3. True (4-5 merous) Dicots. (so called "Eudicots")
Ranunculales to Dipsalales


Stewart Robert Hinsley wrote in message
...
In article m,
Cereoid+10 writes

Presently there are three primary clades of flowering plants recognized.

1. The primitive trimerous dicots.

2. Monocots.

3. True (4-5 merous) Dicots. (so called "Core Eudicots")

It is the first clade that is in need of a simple easy to understand
name.

* It is also far from obvious that the first group is a clade, many
sources reckoning it as a paraphyletic group. Judd et al (1 edn, start
of chapter 8) give 6 alternative cladograms, in none of which are the
"primitive" dicots a clade.

Tree of Life

http://tolweb.org/tree?group=Angiosp...=Spermatopsida

has yet another cladogram which has three basal lineages (Amborallales,
Nymphales and Austrobaileyales), and a pentachotomy in the
Euangiosperms. (It does have most of the primitive euangiosperms in a
tetrachotomous magnoliid clade.)

Angiosperm Phylogeny Website has a similar cladogram

http://www.mobot.org/MOBOT/Research/...apweb2map.html

I notice, that if you ignore the ANITA taxa, this has restored the
monocot-dicot dichotomy, with Ceratophyllales incertae sedis.

* Your trichotomy excludes some plants, viz. the basal eudicots. The
eudicots are the clade with primitively tricolpate pollen, not all of
which have 4-5-merous flowers. The Core Eudicots are a group therein,
excluding, at least, Gunnerales, Ranunculales and Proteales. Whether the
Core Eudicot clade is equivalent the clade which has primitively
4-5-merous flowers is the point under discussion; there's enough
variation in the floral morphology of non-rosid, non-asterid eudicots
that it is not obvious to me what the character polarities should be on
a cladogram.

So what if the AGP uses the name "Core Eudicots" for the true dicots. It
is
silly and redundant. As used in common botanical parlance, the term
"dicot"
has a much deeper meaning than just the number of seedling cotyledons.

Yes, it refers to a suite of traits which distinguishes the combination
of the basal angiosperms and tricolpates from the monocots, one of which
is the number of seedling cotyledons. (Not all of which are universal in
either group, due to subsequent changes of character states.)

Dicots are angiosperms minus monocots only in your antiquated
understanding.
The present concept is that dicots are (4-5 merous) angiosperms minus
monocots minus trimerous dicots.

Not on Tree of Life, not on Angiosperm Phylogeny Website, not in Judd et
al, nor in any other source I've seen. Have you a citation for this
"modernised" redefinition of the term dicot?
--
Stewart Robert Hinsley