Narrative

Sweet acacia (Acacia farnesiana) is found from Mexico north to the Gulf Coast and also in Florida. Its original origin might be further south. The yellow spherical flower heads, less than one inch in diameter, help identify this species. Although this species can be a 30 foot tree, it is usually found as a shrub with several trunks. The small leaflets are only about one-fifth of an inch long.

The yellow color will help identify this lifeform. This lifeform is found in areas of low moisture such as deserts.

This lifeform is found south of the Mason Dixon line in North America. This lifeform is found in Mexico.

Acacia genus is native to the New and Old World. Several species are found in the southern USA, but most New World species are found in tropical Central and South America. There are also species in Africa and Australia. There are about 1,000 species of trees, shrubs, and woody vines in this genus. There are 46 species and 13 named subspecies growing in greater North America, including Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Acacia species are trees and shrubs and woody vines that frequently have double compound leaves.

Mimosa Subfamily (Mimosoideae) is frequently treated as a full family (Family Mimosaceae). This group of herbs, shrubs, and trees are generally of a tropical nature although a few species (Mimosa, Acacia, and Mesquite, etc) are found as far north as Kansas, Illinois, and Ohio. The approximate 1,500 species in this group are usually organized into about forty different genera.

Pea or Legume Family (Leguminosae to Fabaceae) is one of the largest and most important families of plants. Peas, beans, clovers, alfalfa, and other related species are found here. This family of very important plants is usually broken into several sub-families to facilitate study. There are about 16,400 species in this family divided into about 650 different genera. There were, as of 1994, about 1,574 species established in greater North America. These were distributed in 158 different genera. Varous authors divide this family in different ways.

Here they are arbitrarily separated into three parts: The Mimosa and Acacia group, the redbud and locust group (including the Robinia genus), and the Lotiodeae group which contains most of the herbs.

Rose Group (Order Rosales) contains many large and very important families. Included here are fruit trees in the family Rosaceae, the nitrogen fixing plants like clover and alfalfa (in the family Leguminosae), and a large assemblage of plants divided into over fifteen different families.

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.