Narrative

Freesia genus is native to South Africa. There are 6-11 perennial herbs with linear lanceolate ribbed leaves in this genus. Kartesz shows one species, Freesia corymbosa (= Freesia refracta) as being found in greater North America. Griffiths shows F. corymbosa and F. refracta as two different species.

Irises (Family Iridaceae) include the Iris, Gladiolus, Crocus, and other related species. These are important as a family for their beautiful flowers. This family includes approximately 1,800 natural species organized into roughly 92 genera. There are literally thousands of named varieties. In greater North America there are 116 species organized into 23 genera.

Lily Order (Order Liliiflorae) contains several families many of which are noted for their beautiful flowers. In addition to the rushes, this order contains the well-known lily family. Although some authors combine them with the lilies, here the Amaryllis, Iris, and Agave groups are presented in separate families.

Monocots are a large group of plants usually characterized by having leaves with parallel veins and a seed with a single shell. Most flowers are created with multiples of three. In the older botany texts, the Monocots were considered more primitive than the Dicots. However, many recent authors have placed the Monocots as an offshoot of the primitive Dicots. Here they are placed before the Dicots.

In l951 Lawrence at Cornell published a very detailed plant taxonomy for vascular plants. His taxonomy is very useful as he provided both a detailed explanation and also covered many genera. In the l990s Cronquist published a new plant taxonomy that improved the older taxonomy based on new knowledge. About the same time, Dahlgren published a different taxonomy.

Seed plants (Phylum Embryophyta) are generally grouped into one large phylum containing three major classes: the Gymnosperms, the Monocots, and the Dicots. (Some scientists separate the Gymnosperms into a separate phylum and refer to the remaining plants as flowering plants or Angiospermae.)

For North American counts of the number of species in each genus and family, the primary reference has been John T. Kartesz, author of A Synonymized Checklist of the Vascular Flora of the United States, Canada, and Greenland (1994). The geographical scope of his lists include, as part of greater North America, Hawaii, Alaska, Greenland, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.

Kartesz lists 21,757 species of vascular plants comprising the ferns, gymnosperms and flowering plants as being found in greater North America (including Alaska, Hawaii, Greenland, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

There are estimates within the scientific world that about half of the listed North American seed plants were originally native with the balance being comprised of Eurasian and tropical plants that have become established.