Narrative

Styrax japonicus is found in China and Japan. This shrub or small tree can grow to about 30 feet tall.

This lifeform is frequentlhy domesticated.

This lifeform is found in the Orient (China, Japan, Korea.)

Styrax (snowbell) genus is native to the New World and Eurasia. There are about 100 shrubs and small trees in this genus. These plants have alternate leaves and larger drooping flowers. The flowers usually appear with or before the leaves. There are seven species and five named varieties growing in greater North America.

Styracaceae Family is found primarily in the New World and Eurasia. There are approximately 165 species distributed among perhaps a dozen genera. The Styrax genus is the largest genus. The Styracaceae family is represented in North America by ten species organized into two different genera.

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.