Is every plant with a bean pod sort of fruiting structure a legume? How do you tell an agave from a yucca from Nolina or Dasylirion or whatever, if there are no flowers? Why are so many species crammed into the genus Euphorbia? When you’re identifying, do you ever filter for Dicots, or if you’re …

[image] lynnharper: Is every plant with a bean pod sort of fruiting structure a legume? If a plant has divided leaves and its fruits look like a legume, go ahead and put it in Fabaceae (legume or bean family). It’s probably a legume and if it’s not, somebody will get a pleasant feeling of su…

I think it’s fine to mark plants Plantae if you can’t easily put them in a lower category. (I say this as somebody who sometimes searches “Plants” to class, to move these things on.)

Sometimes it’s about keystroke comfort, like if P happens to be easier than A, M, D that day. If no one gets to the big P pile by the time I get back around to them for M, D- no big deal, they’ll still be there later. ;)

Please don’t call native plants “invasive”. That term should be reserved for introduced exotic species aka weeds.

After @Italopithecus said that I looked it up, and seems Amorpha fruticosa is native to N America and introduced in Europe and Asia.

Amorpha fruticosa is native to eastern North America and invasive here the Pacific Northwest of North America. It was introduced to gardens and escaped.

Hmmm. There is a whole big cluster of collections/observations in southwest California, but only scattered records north. I hypothesize that it may be native at the southern sites, but not further north. Take a look at it’s Oregon range: https://oregonflora.org/taxa/index.php?taxon=2720

[image] lynnharper: Is every plant with a bean pod sort of fruiting structure a legume? *Edit: I think I defined carpel wrong, so let me try again: A carpel is the basic female unit of a flower in the same way that a stamen is the basic male unit of a flower. One stamen is the anthers and fil…

Wow. As a notanist myself, you did a spectacular job of explanation. With illustrations, even! Thank you! ETA: And interesting journal posts!

[image] arnanthescout: And I’m not a botanist. I’m a notanist, which is a portmandeau of “not” and “botanist.” The San Diego Museum of Natural History calls their plant survey volunteers parabotanists–I thought that was fun.

Questions for the Botanists

Nature Talk

arboretum_amy February 1, 2023, 1:56am 48

Interesting. We consider it native in California.

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