Narrative

Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) is found from Nova Scotia west to Manitoba and Nebraska and south to Florida, Alabama and Arkansas. The root juice is red. The basal leaves are palmately veined and lobed. This species has white, usually solitary, flowers that sometimes can be pink.

The white color will help identify this lifeform. This lifeform is found in wooded areas. This lifeform is widespread, but not common.

This lifeform is found east of the Continental Divide in North America.

Sanguinaria genus has one species. It is native to eastern North America.

Poppy Family (Papaveraceae) contains about 250 species usually organized into about twenty-five different genera. The alternate leaves are usually lobed or dissected. The family is of considerable importance because of some nice ornamentals and because opium comes from Papavar somniferum. There are about 70 species arranged in about 20 genera established in greater North America.

Rhoeadales Order includes the Poppies, Mustards, and mostly other non-woody groups of plants.

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.