Dicots
Author: Ray Bowers

Description:
Dicots vary in size from 10mm to very large trees. The name dicotyledon refers to the two embryo leaves in the seed or seed leaves. The main vascular pattern in the leaves is either pinnate, a feather pattern, or palmate, a radiating pattern. Between the main veins is a network of veins. The vascular bundles in the stems are usually in a ring pattern around the outside of the stem. Flower parts are usually in fives, but may also be in fours or threes. The flowers may have all of the flower parts in the previous illustration or there may be some missing. The flowers are usually distinct for a particular family, but are variable in color and size.

Geographic range:
The oldest fossils of flowering plants are from this group. Dicots are found world wide, and they are found throughout New Mexico.

Habitat:
Dicots are found in all terrestrial habitats, and many shallow freshwater and saltwater habitats.

Reproduction and Development:
Most dicots are dioecious, but some are monoecious. The flowers may be regular, where the flower can be divided in two, or irregular, where it can not be divided into two equal parts. Pollen grains usually have three grooves or furrows. Dicots can also reproduce asexually.

Conservation:
Some dicots are endangered primarily from habitat loss.

• There are over one hundred seventy thousand known species of dicots in the world. Most of the fruits and vegetables we eat are from dicots.

Taxonomy:

Kingdom: Plantae
Division: Magnoliophyta, Flowering Plants
Class: Magnoliopsida, Dicots

Orders found in New Mexico:

Magnonoliales: birthworts and fumitorys
Berberidales: moonseeds, buttercups, and poppys
Nymphaeales: water-lilys
Caryophyllales: pinks, purslanes, claret cup cactus, New Mexico prickly pear cactus, four-winged saltbush, pokeweed, four-o-clocks, goosefoot, and pigweeds
Theales: St John's wort
Ericales: heaths, Indian pipes, and primroses
Fouquieriales: ocotillo
Styracales: sapodilla or sopote
Polygonales: Abert's buckwheat and knotweeds
Celastrales: bittersweet or staff tree
Malvales: mallows and lindens
Urticales: elms, hackberries, nettles, and mulberries
Rhamnales: buckthorns
Euphorbiales: spurges
Violales: violets, willows, and gourds
Brassicales: Fendler's bladderpod, wallflowers, and crown of thorns
Santales: mistletoes
Linales: creosote bush
Geraniales: oxalis or sorrels and geraniums
Polygales: propeller plant and milkworts
Rutales: citrus, ptelea, sumac, poison ivy, buckeyes, and maples. soapberries, shortstem lupine, and mesquite
Hamamelidales: sycamores
Juglandales: walnuts
Betulales: birches and oaks
Rosales: roses, cherries, raspberries, and cinquefoils
Hydrangeales: hydrangeas
Cornales: grapes, dogwoods, and bunchberries
Araliales: carrots, parsnips, and parsley
Dipsacales: honeysuckles, elders, and snowberries
Asterales: desert holly, thistles, tarbush, daisys, asters, desert marigold, sunflowers, cone flowers, goldenrods
Campanuales: bellflowers
Solanales: silver-leaf nightshade, desert tobacco, morning-glories and bindweeds, hidden flowers, heliotropes, phlox, and scorpionweeds
Myrtales: evening primroses, gauras, broomrape, and loosestrife
Gentianales: bluets, bedstraw, dogbane, milkweeds, and gentians
Scrophulariales: olives, menodora, desert willow, snapdragons, penstemons, plaintains, verbena, and mints

References:
Allred, Kelly W. 2000. A Field Guide to the Flora of the Jornada Plain. Las Cruces, New Mexico: Department of Animal and Range Sciences, New Mexico State University.

Curtis, Helena and N. Sue Barnes. 1989. Biology. New York: Worth Publishers, Inc.

Ivey, Robert Dewitt, 1995, Flowering Plants of New Mexico. Albuquerque, New Mexico: Published by author.

Stern, Kinsley R. 1997. Introductory Plant Biology. Dubuque, Iowa: Wm. C. Brown Publishing.

Wooton, E. O. and Paul C. Standley. 1915. Flora of New Mexico. Washington: Government Printing Office.

Zomlefer, Wendy B. 1994. Flowering Plant Families. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press.

Related Terms: Magnoliopsida, Dicotyledons