Arrangement: ©Fong Khi Yung (Raffles Institution)

Plant Taxonomy (Spermatopsida, seed plants)

Ginkgophyta (Ginkgos)
- 1 genus and 1 species, Ginkgo biloba
- Deciduous, dioecious trees; widely planted as ornamental;
useful wayside tree due to resistance to polluted air
- Seeds contain butyric acid and result in unpleasant smell;
only male trees usually planted
- Seeds play a role in TCM and used to increase circulation
- Represented during Mesozoic with worldwide distribution
Pinophyta (conifers)
- Most diverse of the gymnosperms; date back to Paleozoic
- 630 living species across 6 families
- Dominant in cold and arctic regions
- Usually monoecious – pollen-producing and seed-producing strobili (sporangia
bearing structures) on same plant
- Woody plants (trees) with cones and vascular tissue
- Monopodial growth
• Single, straight trunk with side branches
• Strong apical dominance of trunk over branches
- Simple, needle or scale-like leaves
- Tallest tree: coast redwood (113 m)
- Largest tree: giant sequoia (1490 m3)
- Thickest tree: Montezuma cypress (11.5 m)
- Oldest tree: great basin bristlecone pine (4700 yo)
- Cedars, cypresses, firs, pines, redwoods, spruces, yews
Cycadophyta (cycads)
- Crown of large pinnately palm-like compound
leaves and stout trunk
- Not actually closely related to palms
- Dioecious; many bear large coloured cones
- Thrived in Jurassic; can withstand harsh semi-
desert conditions, sand or rock

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Arrangement: ©Fong Khi Yung (Raffles Institution)

- Able to fix nitrogen with cyanobacteria in their roots; which produce neurotoxin
incorporated into their seeds
Magnoliophyta (Angiosperms)
- Distinctive features
• FLOWERING ORGANS – species-specific breeding system; allows domination of
terrestrial ecosystems
• STAMENS WITH 2 PAIRS OF POLLEN SACS – modified over time to prevent self-
fertilization
• 3-CELL MALE PARTS – male gametophyte largely reduced; shorter time
between pollination and fertilization allows faster production of seeds
• CLOSED CARPEL – prevents self-fertilization; carpel will develop into fruit
• REDUCED FEMALE GAMETOPHYTE (7 CELLS 8 NUCLEI)
• ENDOSPERM – highly nutritive tissue for developing embryo (triple fusion
nucleus formed during double fertilization)
- Magnoliids (Magnoliaceae)
• Fragrant-flowering trees and shrubs; usually bisexual flowers on branch tips;
pollinated by beetles. [Magnoliids evolved before butterflies and bees, so only
beetles were around then and they co-evolved from that point onwards.]
• 6 tepals (non-distinct sepals and petals, which evolved to protect bud and
attract pollinators), many stamens and many carpels
• Seeds hang by threads from conelike fruits
• Simple alternate leaves
• Large geological distribution altered by many major geologic events e.g.
continental drift, ice age, mountain formation
• Avocado, nutmeg, cinnamon, black pepper, magnolia (duh)
- Eudicotyledons (dicots)
• Monophyletic based on tricolpate pollen and DNA
• Cyclic flowers (petals in whorls; different outer/inner perianth of sepals/petals)
• Family names end in –aceae
• Ranunculaceae (Buttercup family)
✓ Mostly herbaceous

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Arrangement: ©Fong Khi Yung (Raffles Institution)

✓ Characterized by multiple pistils at the flower

center; most other flowers besides Rosaceae
have fused pistils instead. Petals largely
unfused.
✓ Many poisonous and have terpenoid alkaloids
which depress nervous system; used as lethal
drugs in ancient times
✓ Retained many ancestral characteristics
✓ Traveller’s joy, Aconitum
• Rosaceae (Rose family)
✓ Herbs, shrubs or trees
✓ Regular flowers with 5 sepals and 5 petals
✓ Numerous stamens, usually in multiples of 5
✓ Edible fruits though laxative, vegetation astringent (constricts body tissues)
✓ May contain cyanide and sorbitol
✓ Wide variety: apple, peach, almond, apricot, cherry, plum, pear, raspberry,
strawberry, loquat, hawthorn, rose
✓ Flowers pollinated by flies, bees, wasps, butterflies, moths and beetles
✓ Most abundant in Northern Hemisphere

• Fabaceae (Legume family)

✓ 3rd LARGEST angiosperm family
✓ Fruit called legume or pod – single carpel splitting open along 2 seams
✓ Nitrogen fixing via root-nodulating Rhizobium bacteria (N2 → NO3-/NH3)
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Arrangement: ©Fong Khi Yung (Raffles Institution)

✓ Subfamily Papilionideae – bilaterally

symmetric flowers with 9+1 stamens (9
stamens fused and a single stamen
separate from rest) and a larger upper
petal above lateral ones
✓ Subfamily Mimosoideae – tropical trees
and shrubs; colourful stamens
✓ Subfamily Caesalpinoidae – upper petal
inside lateral ones; 10 separate stamens
✓ Mimosa, pea, acacia, raintree
• Malvaceae (Mallow family)
✓ Distinct funnel-shaped flower with 3-5 united sepals and 5 petals + some
bracts (modified leaves)
✓ Superior ovary of ≥5 carpels with partition walls
✓ Leaves usually palmately lobed
✓ Contain natural gums (mucilage, pectin, asparagin) → used to make
marshmallows, hence the family name
✓ Cotton, cacao, linden, durian, hibiscus, okra, kapok

• Euphorbiaceae (Spurge family)

✓ 4th LARGEST angiosperm family
✓ Trees, shrubs, herbs and vines; sometimes succulent and cactus-like
✓ With milky/coloured latex that is poisonous (alkaloids, saponins)
✓ Can cause rash and considered carcinogenic
✓ Many have elastic schizocarps (dry fruit capable of splitting into mericarps)
to scatter seeds. [Mexican jumping bean jumps for another reason – moth
larvae moving inside the seed]
✓ Tapioca, rubber, ant plant, castor bean, spurge, poinsettia

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Arrangement: ©Fong Khi Yung (Raffles Institution)

Spurge Ant plant

• Moraceae (Mulberry family)

✓ Contain laticifers (elongated secretory cell of latex/sap)
✓ Leaves of some species of Morus used as silkworm food
✓ 1000 out of 1400 belong to Ficus genus; some others to Artocarpus
✓ Ficus flowers pollinated by wasps that enter to lay eggs on ovaries; wasp
larvae feed on carpellate flowers’ ovary tissues. Timing of staminate flowers
is synchronized with pupae emergence; wasps mate within fig and females
carrying pollen go to another carpellate flower, and so on.
✓ Jackfruit, banyan tree, fig
• Cactaceae (Cactus family)
✓ Thick, succulent and spiny; colourful bisexual
flowers → some ornamental
✓ Ovary matures as pulpy berry with numerous seeds
✓ CAM photosynthesis; mainly North/South America
✓ Sunken stomata, thick cuticle, CAM, wide spreading
fibrous/taproot system
QotN
✓ Dragon fruit, queen of the night
• Brassicaceae (Mustard family)
✓ Trees, shrubs or herbs; nice rosette leaves
✓ Mustard flowers are 4 petals arranged in X or H
✓ Seed pods always form as raceme (unbranched inflorescence bearing
short-stalked flowers/fruits)
✓ Produce glucosynolates and cyanogenic
✓ Chye sim, radish, watercress, turnip, mustard, cabbage, cauliflower,
kohlrabi, Brussel sprouts, broccoli, kale, rapeseed
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Arrangement: ©Fong Khi Yung (Raffles Institution)

✓ Many species prefer outcrossing but many weedy species are selfing

• Myrtaceae (Myrtle family)

✓ Trees or shrubs with flaky bark
✓ Scattered pellucid dots (secretory cavities of
terpenoids and resins)
✓ Numerous stamens and at least partially
inferior ovaries
✓ Bottlebrush tree, guava, sea apple, rose apple,
eucalyptus
• Lamiaceae (Mint family)
✓ Squarish stalk and simple opposite leaves
✓ Aromatic leaves; bisexual irregular flowers
✓ Source of many kitchen spices
✓ 2 lobes on upper lip and 3 lobes on lower lip of flower
✓ Basil, oregano, mint, peppermint, spearmint, thyme, sage

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Arrangement: ©Fong Khi Yung (Raffles Institution)

• Solanaceae (Nightshade family)

✓ Herbs, shrubs, vines or trees
✓ Solitary bisexual flowers; 5 separate/united sepals and 5 united petals with 5
stamens on the tube
✓ Most poisonous due to tropane or alkaloid presence
✓ Source of many powerful narcotics and food plants
✓ Capsicum, tobacco, chili, jalapeno, paprika, belladonna (for atropine)
• Rubiaceae (Coffee family)
✓ Trees, shrubs, herbs or lianas (long-stemmed woody vines)
✓ Most produce capsule or berry
✓ Usually grow in tropics
✓ Star flower, ixora, coffee, noni, cinchona
• Asteraceae (‘Star flower’)
✓ 2nd LARGEST ANGIOSPERM FAMILY
✓ Herbs, shrubs or trees; ornamentals mostly
✓ The ‘flower’ is called a pseudanthium.
✓ Flowers densely aggregated and surrounded by bracts
called phyllaries → form involucre to protect individual
flowers before opening
✓ Inflorescence: disk flowers with microscopic sepals,
petals, stamens, pistils; ray flowers (big ‘petals’) which
are infertile flowers with no reproductive structures
✓ Filaments respond to touch by contracting to force
pollen onto pollinator
✓ Sunflower, dandelion, chrysanthemum, dahlia
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Arrangement: ©Fong Khi Yung (Raffles Institution)

• Crassulaceae (Orpine/Stonecrop family)

✓ Herbs or shrubs with succulent leaves
✓ Found in Northern hemisphere/South Africa
✓ Famous for CAM photosynthesis being first discovered in this family
• Fagaceae (Beech/Oak family)
✓ Over 900 species of evergreen and deciduous trees/shrubs
✓ Alternate, simple leaves with pinnate venation
✓ Dioecious 4-calyxed flowers and cuplike nuts
- Monocotyledons
• Monophyletic based on herbaceous habit and parallel-veined leaves, single-
cotyledon-embryo, scattered vascular bundles, adventitious root system,
pentacyclic 3-numerous flowers
• Typically monosulcate pollen
• Liliaceae (Lily family)
✓ Large, showy blossoms with 6 distinct tepals and
nectar production at base; 3 carpels with superior
ovaries; grow from starchy bulbs or corms
✓ Lily, tulip
• Amaryllidaceae (Amaryllis/Onion family)
✓ Mostly edible bulbs like the lily family
✓ Flowers smaller and formed in small umbels which emerge from a bract
✓ Contain scented sulfur compounds (allyl sulfides etc.)
✓ Mildly antiseptic sap

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Arrangement: ©Fong Khi Yung (Raffles Institution)

✓ Wide distribution in temperate/tropical regions

✓ Flowers pollinated esp. by bees/wasps and seeds predominantly wind/water
dispersed
✓ Spider lily, daffodil, garlic, onion, shallots, chives, leeks
• Orchidaceae (Orchid family)
✓ BIGGEST angiosperm family
✓ Terrestrial or epiphytic herb/vines with rhizomes
✓ Aerial roots, often mycorrhizal, with spongy, water-absorbing epidermis
composed of dead cells (velamen)
✓ Stems thickened at base forming pseudobulbs
✓ Bisexual flowers; lower petal modified as a sort of landing platform for
pollinators. 3 petals and 3 sepals; showy labellum
✓ Inferior ovary; pollen grains united in a mass
✓ Microscopic seeds with small embryo enclosed in a few cells
✓ Ornamentals and vanilla extraction
✓ Diverse in tropical regions where they are epiphytic
✓ Many specialized and attract only a few pollinator species; some utilize
pseudocopulation by mimicking female bee/wasp scents
✓ Vanilla + basically all orchids

• Poaceae (Grass family)

✓ 4th LARGEST ANGIOSPERM FAMILY
✓ Herbs, often rhizomatous; trees in tropical bamboos
✓ Stems jointed, round to elliptical in TS, with silica bodies
✓ Leaves alternate, consisting of sheath, ligule and blade

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Arrangement: ©Fong Khi Yung (Raffles Institution)

✓ Sheaths encircle stem, ligule a membranous flange or fringe of hairs

✓ Flowers consist of many closely overlapping bracts and florets
✓ Flowers small; wind-pollinated; 3-6 stamens; feathery stigma
✓ Have spikelets to protect flowers yet allow pollination
✓ Agamospermy (seeds produced from unfertilized ovules) and inbreeding
allow rapid colonization
✓ C3/C4 leaf anatomy adapt to many places
✓ Meristems at bases of internodes/sheaths allows grasses to withstand fire
and grazing
✓ All cereal grains belong to this family
✓ Wheat, rice, corn, oats, barley, millet, rye, grass (duh)
• Cyperaceae (Sedge family)
✓ Triangular stems vs grasses with lumpy nodes on flower stems – ‘sedges
have edges, grasses have knees’
✓ Alternate and 3-ranked, with no ligules
✓ Flowers have bristles, hairs or scales instead of sepals/petals, or just nothing
✓ Flowers have only 1 bract; most grass flowers have 2
✓ Cyperus papyrus (papyrus paper), sedge (water grass)

• Arecaceae (Palm family)

✓ Unbranched or rarely branched trunks
✓ Apex of stem has a large apical meristem
✓ Leaves crowded in terminal crown, usually splitting in pinnate to palmate
fashion as leaf expands
✓ Sessile flowers with 3 sepals, 3 petals, 3 carpels.
✓ Fruit a drupe, usually 1-seeded and fibrous
✓ Tannins and polyphenols often present; many food plants, thatch providers
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Arrangement: ©Fong Khi Yung (Raffles Institution)

✓ Distinct, easily recognizable, monophyletic

✓ Widespread in tropical/warm temperate
✓ Rattan, coconuts, date palms, oil palms,
raffia, practically all palms

• Araceae (Aroid/Arum family)

✓ Unique plants with small flowers crowded on fleshy stalk (spadix), often
surrounded by large coloured bract called a spathe
✓ Grooved crystals of calcium oxalate present in specialized cells and
associated inflammatory chemicals causing mouth/throat irritation if eaten
✓ Swiss cheese plant, dumbcane, elephant’s ear, money plant

Swiss cheese plant

• Bromeliaceae (Bromelaid family)

✓ Epiphytic herbs with silica bodies
✓ Leaves alternate and spiral; form a rosette that collects water
✓ Early divergent clade; adaptations to xerophytic and epiphytic conditions
✓ Elongate concave leaves for water retention, expanding water-absorbing
scales for hairs, sunken stomata, thick cuticle, CAM photosynthesis
✓ Pineapple!
•

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