Narrative

This lfieform is found in Central America.

Passilfora (passion flower) genus is found primarily in South America. However, a few species are found in North America, Asia, and Australia. There are about 500 species in this genus. These plants are typically woody or herbaceous vines climbing with tendrils. However, a few are climbing shrubs or even trees. The flowers are usually large and spring from the leaf axils. The fruit is a many-seeded berry. There are about 35 species now growing in greater North America, including Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

Passion Flower Family (Passifloraceae) contains about 600 species usually organized into approximately ten different genera. These are typically vines or erect herbs with alternate petioled usually palmately lobed leaves. Several of the species in this family are grown as ornamentals. There is only one genus growing in greater North America.

Parietales Order is a large assemblage containing over thirty different families. The violets are a well-known group in this order. The St. Johnswort family is another well known family in 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.