Narrative

Baobab tree (Adansonia digitata) is native to most of Africa south of the Sahara Desert. This tree can grow to 60 feet tall with a trunk up to 30 feet across. This tree has large white flowers.

This lifeform is found widely in Africa.

Adansonia genus is native to Africa, Madagascar, and northwestern Australia. There are nine species of trees in this genus. They generally have massive trunks, small branches, and large white flowers that open at night.

Bombax Family (Bombacaceae) has about 250 species arranged into about 30 different genera. There are five species found in greater North America, each in its own genus.

Malvales are a group of woody plants and herbs generally limited to the tropics. However, there are a few species in the United States.

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.