Narrative

Rose acacia or bristly locust (Robinia hispida) is a three to nine foot shrub native to the southeastern United States (the mountains of Virginia, eastern Tennessee, and Georgia). There are five varieties to this species. The branches are bristly. The flowers are pink or purple. The linear pods are bristly. This species is frequently grown as an ornamental, and consequently has escaped and is established over a much wider range than its native habitat.

The pink color will help identify this lifeform. This lifeform is frequentlhy domesticated.

This lifeform is found in the SE USA (Georgia, Alabama, and Florida.)

Robinia genus (locust trees) is native to North America. This genus contains trees or shrubs with odd-pinnate leaves and racemes of showy flowers. The pods are flat. Kartesz says that there are four species, four hybrids, and nine subspecies established in greater North America. (Although here this genus is placed with the redbud and Gleditsia locust trees, it properly belongs in the Lotiodeae subfamily.)

Senna Subfamily (Caesalpiniaceae) is a group of trees, herbs, and shrubs of a tropical nature represented by a few species found in North America. There are approximately ninety different genera and about 1,000 species in the group which is frequently treated as a full family.

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.