I personally have always seen dicots as the superior plant because of their complexities and important members, like potatoes. Who else thinks about this and what is your opinion?
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from a staple food perspective, monocots – and especially, grasses – are by far more important to humans than dicots. think rice, wheat, corn, sugar cane, etc.
that’s not to say that dicots aren’t nice, too, though. more biodiversity means more types of food to enjoy.
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I used feel that way but the diversity of Grasses, Orchids and Aroids changed my mind so much that now I feel like Monocots are the superior plant :)
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I see what you mean
I am enjoying the irony of a lesson on the importance of monocots as staple foods being provided by a user named after a dicot (albeit one that is also an important food source)
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The sensibility of talking about superiority of plant groups aside;
monocots are wildly succesfull, and whole biomes are named after them (grasslands); an dthey are quite a few niches, where they are the dominant group. It is true they are a lot less speciose than eudicots*, but usually, are more widely distributed and cover more when present.
there is few dicot groups that could match the strucural complexity of orchid and commellinid flowers and aroid have very diverse leaf structure (as well as sometimes peculiar inflorescences).
Personally, I like old magnoliid dicots; they managed to survive until now, some of them relatively unchaged for millions of years, and some of them are just plain weird (i. e. Arisotolochiaceae); like a plant version of crocodiles.
*dicots are not a true group. the old magnoliid dicots are less related to true dicots (eudicots) than monocots
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She came to talk to our garden club this week. Long story short - Homo SAPIENS emerged on the Cape coast thanks to a diet of shellfish (brain food) and geophytes (calories and fibre). Among mediterranean climates we have the greatest variety of geophytes.
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/556124-Watsonia-tabularis emerging across Silvermine after the fire. Our Stone Age ancestors would have come here to harvest the large corms - roasted and smoked in the fire - and delicious to eat she told us. So monocots.
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I don’t feel either one is “superior” - they are both cool in their own ways!
Also trilliums are monocots.
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well, a pisum (or other legume) will always complement cereals. humans who eat peas need a little bit more of the amino acid methionine to make a complete protein, and cereals like rice have plenty of it.
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I don’t know of any meaningful way that one major group of plants could be superior to another.
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My old Botany Lecturer, the now sadly late Dr Choong Low, had a theory of the origin of monocots. He, along with other botanists in Europe were of the opinion that palm trees were descendants of the Gymnosperm cycads. Palm trees in turn are the ancestors of all the grasses, lillies, sedges and orchids comprising the monocots. I am sure their papers are online somewhere. (Apologies for being off topic).
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Complexity, long lifespan or even intelligence does not mean superiority.
Doves are not the brightest of birds, can’t fly that well and can’t even walk without headbanging but they can build a nest while the intelligent cockatoos are bound by suitable nesting holes for reproduction.
Grasses can extract nutrients from silicate minerals. Despite their apparent simplicity, they proliferated from obscure rainforest creeper to a dominant plant form. The dissolved silica gives us silicrete rock layers, diatomaceous earth from diatoms and foraminifera building a silica skeleton. The silica crystals on the grass blade surface erode the teeth of herbivores, so horses developed a longer face to house the longer teeth to last a lifetime grazing grass. The spread of grasslands forced some apes to climb of the trees and walk on two legs. So here we are, eating bread and rice and corn.
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Grass attracts fire - which clears the trees - and the grass manages the landscape with fire. In an article I cannot find again.
Eve ate shellfish and bulbs
https://theconversation.com/ancient-human-tracks-on-south-africas-west-coast-3-reasons-they-are-an-exciting-find-175067
So what is your favorite magnoliid dicot?
For me, Nymphaea is beautiful and with ancient morphology.
And what about basal dicots? Are they still superior or not?
Yes! Lovely!
tough question :D
Aristolochia arborea (aka Darth Vader plant); Ocotea foetens; Magnolia tripetala come to mind
The genus Allium is a monocot, so monocots win. I rest my case.
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A. tricoccum. Is in Allium. You are right. As always.