Narrative

White Mangrove (Laguncularia racemosa) is found along the Florida coast in much of the state. The leaves are one to three inches long. Small greenish-white flowers occur in racemes. This is normally a shrub in Florida, but it can grow to about 60 feet in the tropics.

The green color will help identify this lifeform. This lifeform is locally common.

This lifeform is found in Florida, USA. This lifeform is found widely in the New World tropics.

Laguncularia genus is represented by a single species in greater North America.

Combretum Family (Combretaceae) is a family of about 500 species of trees and bushes found in the tropics of the world. There are eight species in five different genera growing in greater North America.

Myrtiflorae Order is an assemblage of over twenty 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.