Stubby wrote:

Is there a systematic list of plants that can be used for
identification? Given I know things like leaf shape, arrangement of
veins in the leaf, bark characteristics, branching, etc, is there an
interactive database that gives me suggestions of the ID plus pictures?

You might want to locate a copy of C. L. Porter's "Taxonomy of
Flowering Plants" (W. H. Freeman, 1967). This covers the
angiosperms, both dicots and monocots.

The classification of angiosperms is primarily based on the
structure of individual flowers with secondary consideration given
to "fruits" (broadly defined to include grains and various pods)
and the arrangement of flowers into clusters.

The goal is to classify plants according to their anscestry.
However, without a complete fossil record of anscestors,
classification depends on assuming that plants with a similar
flower structure had a more recent common anscestor than flowers
with unlike structure. Thus, two plants with 4-petal flowers are
more closely related than either is to a plant with 5-petal flowers
(when degenerate petals are included).

Only recently is plant DNA becoming involved in taxonomy.

Gymnosperms (conifers, cycads, ginkgos) are a different subject.

--

David E. Ross
URL:http://www.rossde.com/

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