Narrative

False Bugbane (Trautvetteria caroliniensis) is found widely in North America and also in Japan. This stout smooth plant can be up to three feet tall. The basal leaves are long-petioled and can be up to eight inches wide. There are no petals in the small white flowers.

The white color will help identify this lifeform.

This lifeform is found in Japan. This lifeform is widespread in North America.

Trautvettera genus is native to eastern Eurasia and North America. There are one or two or possibly three perennial herbs in this genus. (There are some contradictions in the literature as to the specific status of certain members of this genus: Is the Japanese form a separate species? Is the western North American form a separate species?)

Buttercup Family (Ranunculaceae) reaches its greatest development in North America, Europe, and the Orient. The family has approximately 1500 species organized into about thirty-five different genera. With the exception of the Genus Paeonia (which might even belong in a different family) most of the species are soft-stemmed annual or perennial herbs. The leaves are usually alternate (except for Clematis). Flowers may be regular or irregular. In the buttercup family, there are 26 genera with 318 species growing in greater North America.

Ranales Order has been broken down into nineteen different families. The water lilies, buttercups, magnolias, and other groups are included in this order. Large pretty flowers seem to be a common characteristic of this order.

Dicots (Dicotyledoneae Class) are the predominant group of vascular plants on earth. With the exception of the grasses (Monocots) and the Conifers (Gymnosperms), most of the larger plants that one encounters are Dicots. Dicots are characterized by having a seed with two outer shell coverings.

Some of the more primitive Dicots are the typical hardwood trees (oaks, birches, hickories, etc). The more advanced Dicots include many of the Composite (Aster) Family flowers like the Dandelion, Aster, Thistles, and Sunflowers. Although many Monocots reach a very high degree of specialization, most botanists feel that the Dicots represent the most advanced group of plants.

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.