1.
Taxonomy (biology)
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Taxonomy is the science of defining groups of biological organisms on the basis of shared characteristics and giving names to those groups. The exact definition of taxonomy varies from source to source, but the core of the remains, the conception, naming. There is some disagreement as to whether biological nomenclature is considered a part of taxonomy, the broadest meaning of taxonomy is used here. The word taxonomy was introduced in 1813 by Candolle, in his Théorie élémentaire de la botanique, the term alpha taxonomy is primarily used today to refer to the discipline of finding, describing, and naming taxa, particularly species. In earlier literature, the term had a different meaning, referring to morphological taxonomy, ideals can, it may be said, never be completely realized. They have, however, a value of acting as permanent stimulants. Some of us please ourselves by thinking we are now groping in a beta taxonomy, turrill thus explicitly excludes from alpha taxonomy various areas of study that he includes within taxonomy as a whole, such as ecology, physiology, genetics, and cytology. He further excludes phylogenetic reconstruction from alpha taxonomy, thus, Ernst Mayr in 1968 defined beta taxonomy as the classification of ranks higher than species. This activity is what the term denotes, it is also referred to as beta taxonomy. How species should be defined in a group of organisms gives rise to practical and theoretical problems that are referred to as the species problem. The scientific work of deciding how to define species has been called microtaxonomy, by extension, macrotaxonomy is the study of groups at higher taxonomic ranks, from subgenus and above only, than species. While some descriptions of taxonomic history attempt to date taxonomy to ancient civilizations, earlier works were primarily descriptive, and focused on plants that were useful in agriculture or medicine. There are a number of stages in scientific thinking. Early taxonomy was based on criteria, the so-called artificial systems. Later came systems based on a complete consideration of the characteristics of taxa, referred to as natural systems, such as those of de Jussieu, de Candolle and Bentham. The publication of Charles Darwins Origin of Species led to new ways of thinking about classification based on evolutionary relationships and this was the concept of phyletic systems, from 1883 onwards. This approach was typified by those of Eichler and Engler, the advent of molecular genetics and statistical methodology allowed the creation of the modern era of phylogenetic systems based on cladistics, rather than morphology alone. Taxonomy has been called the worlds oldest profession, and naming and classifying our surroundings has likely been taking place as long as mankind has been able to communicate
2.
Plant
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Plants are mainly multicellular, predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. The term is generally limited to the green plants, which form an unranked clade Viridiplantae. This includes the plants, conifers and other gymnosperms, ferns, clubmosses, hornworts, liverworts, mosses and the green algae. Green plants have cell walls containing cellulose and obtain most of their energy from sunlight via photosynthesis by primary chloroplasts and their chloroplasts contain chlorophylls a and b, which gives them their green color. Some plants are parasitic and have lost the ability to produce amounts of chlorophyll or to photosynthesize. Plants are characterized by sexual reproduction and alternation of generations, although reproduction is also common. There are about 300–315 thousand species of plants, of which the great majority, green plants provide most of the worlds molecular oxygen and are the basis of most of Earths ecologies, especially on land. Plants that produce grains, fruits and vegetables form humankinds basic foodstuffs, Plants play many roles in culture. They are used as ornaments and, until recently and in variety, they have served as the source of most medicines. The scientific study of plants is known as botany, a branch of biology, Plants are one of the two groups into which all living things were traditionally divided, the other is animals. The division goes back at least as far as Aristotle, who distinguished between plants, which generally do not move, and animals, which often are mobile to catch their food. Much later, when Linnaeus created the basis of the system of scientific classification. Since then, it has become clear that the plant kingdom as originally defined included several unrelated groups, however, these organisms are still often considered plants, particularly in popular contexts. When the name Plantae or plant is applied to a group of organisms or taxon. The evolutionary history of plants is not yet settled. Those which have been called plants are in bold, the way in which the groups of green algae are combined and named varies considerably between authors. Algae comprise several different groups of organisms which produce energy through photosynthesis, most conspicuous among the algae are the seaweeds, multicellular algae that may roughly resemble land plants, but are classified among the brown, red and green algae. Each of these groups also includes various microscopic and single-celled organisms
3.
Flowering plant
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The flowering plants, also known as Angiospermae or Magnoliophyta, are the most diverse group of land plants, with 416 families, approx. 13,164 known genera and a total of c.295,383 known species, etymologically, angiosperm means a plant that produces seeds within an enclosure, in other words, a fruiting plant. The term angiosperm comes from the Greek composite word meaning enclosed seeds, the ancestors of flowering plants diverged from gymnosperms in the Triassic Period, during the range 245 to 202 million years ago, and the first flowering plants are known from 160 mya. They diversified extensively during the Lower Cretaceous, became widespread by 120 mya, angiosperms differ from other seed plants in several ways, described in the table. These distinguishing characteristics taken together have made the angiosperms the most diverse and numerous land plants, the amount and complexity of tissue-formation in flowering plants exceeds that of gymnosperms. The vascular bundles of the stem are arranged such that the xylem and phloem form concentric rings, in the dicotyledons, the bundles in the very young stem are arranged in an open ring, separating a central pith from an outer cortex. In each bundle, separating the xylem and phloem, is a layer of meristem or active formative tissue known as cambium, the soft phloem becomes crushed, but the hard wood persists and forms the bulk of the stem and branches of the woody perennial. Among the monocotyledons, the bundles are more numerous in the stem and are scattered through the ground tissue. They contain no cambium and once formed the stem increases in diameter only in exceptional cases, the characteristic feature of angiosperms is the flower. Flowers show remarkable variation in form and elaboration, and provide the most trustworthy external characteristics for establishing relationships among angiosperm species, the function of the flower is to ensure fertilization of the ovule and development of fruit containing seeds. The floral apparatus may arise terminally on a shoot or from the axil of a leaf, occasionally, as in violets, a flower arises singly in the axil of an ordinary foliage-leaf. There are two kinds of cells produced by flowers. Microspores, which divide to become pollen grains, are the male cells and are borne in the stamens. The female cells called megaspores, which divide to become the egg cell, are contained in the ovule. The flower may consist only of parts, as in willow. Usually, other structures are present and serve to protect the sporophylls, the individual members of these surrounding structures are known as sepals and petals. The outer series is usually green and leaf-like, and functions to protect the rest of the flower, the inner series is, in general, white or brightly colored, and is more delicate in structure. It functions to attract insect or bird pollinators, attraction is effected by color, scent, and nectar, which may be secreted in some part of the flower
4.
Magnoliids
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Magnoliids are a group of flowering plants. Until recently, the group included about 9,000 species, including magnolias, nutmeg, bay laurel, cinnamon, avocado, black pepper, tulip tree and that group is characterized by trimerous flowers, pollen with one pore, and usually branching-veined leaves. Magnoliidae is the name of a subclass, and magnoliids is an informal name that does not conform to the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi. The circumscription of a subclass will vary with the system being used. The only requirement is that it must include the family Magnoliaceae, the informal name magnoliids is used by some researchers to avoid the confusion that recently surrounds the name Magnoliidae. More recently, the group has been redefined under the PhyloCode as a clade comprising the Canellales, Laurales, Magnoliales. Chase & Reveal have proposed, Magnoliidae as the used for the entire group of flowering plants. The APG III and its predecessor systems did not originally use formal botanical names above the rank of order, under those systems, larger clades were usually referred to by informal names, such as magnoliids or magnoliid complex. The formal name in Linnean nomenclature was specified in a separate APG publication as the existing name Magnolianae Takht, the APG III recognizes a clade within the angiosperms for the magnoliids. The circumscription is, The clade includes most of the groups of the angiosperms. This clade was formally named Magnoliidae in 2007 under provisions of the PhyloCode, the Cronquist system used the name Magnoliidae for one of six subclasses. In their systems, the name Magnoliidae is used for a larger group including all dicotyledons. This is also the case in some of the derived from the Cronquist system. Dahlgren divided his Magnolianae into ten orders, more than other systems of the time and this revised system diverges from the Cronquist system, but agrees more closely with the circumscription later published under APG II. Comparison of classification systems is often difficult, two authors may also describe the same group with nearly identical composition, but each may then apply a different name to that group or place the group at a different taxonomic rank. For example, the composition of Cronquists subclass Magnoliidae is nearly the same as Thornes superorder Magnolianae, because of these difficulties and others, the synoptic table below imprecisely compares the definition of magnoliid groups in the systems of four authors. For each system, only orders are named in the table, all orders included by a particular author are listed and linked in that column. When a taxon is not included by that author, but was included by an author in another column, the sequence of each system has been altered from its publication in order to pair corresponding taxa between columns
5.
Carl Linnaeus
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Carl Linnaeus, also known after his ennoblement as Carl von Linné, was a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, who formalised the modern system of naming organisms called binomial nomenclature. He is known by the father of modern taxonomy. Many of his writings were in Latin, and his name is rendered in Latin as Carolus Linnæus, Linnaeus was born in the countryside of Småland, in southern Sweden. He received most of his education at Uppsala University. He lived abroad between 1735 and 1738, where he studied and also published a first edition of his Systema Naturae in the Netherlands and he then returned to Sweden, where he became professor of medicine and botany at Uppsala. In the 1740s, he was sent on journeys through Sweden to find and classify plants. In the 1750s and 1760s, he continued to collect and classify animals, plants, and minerals, at the time of his death, he was one of the most acclaimed scientists in Europe. The philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau sent him the message, Tell him I know no man on earth. The German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote, With the exception of Shakespeare and Spinoza, Swedish author August Strindberg wrote, Linnaeus was in reality a poet who happened to become a naturalist. Among other compliments, Linnaeus has been called Princeps botanicorum, The Pliny of the North and he is also considered as one of the founders of modern ecology. In botany, the abbreviation used to indicate Linnaeus as the authority for species names is L. In older publications, sometimes the abbreviation Linn. is found, Linnæus was born in the village of Råshult in Småland, Sweden, on 23 May 1707. He was the first child of Nicolaus Ingemarsson and Christina Brodersonia and his siblings were Anna Maria Linnæa, Sofia Juliana Linnæa, Samuel Linnæus, and Emerentia Linnæa. One of a line of peasants and priests, Nils was an amateur botanist, a Lutheran minister. Christina was the daughter of the rector of Stenbrohult, Samuel Brodersonius, a year after Linnæus birth, his grandfather Samuel Brodersonius died, and his father Nils became the rector of Stenbrohult. The family moved into the rectory from the curates house, even in his early years, Linnæus seemed to have a liking for plants, flowers in particular. Whenever he was upset, he was given a flower, which calmed him. Nils spent much time in his garden and often showed flowers to Linnaeus, soon Linnæus was given his own patch of earth where he could grow plants
6.
Vine
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A vine in the narrowest sense is the grapevine, but more generally it can refer to any plant with a growth habit of trailing or scandent stems, lianas or runners. The word also can refer to such stems or runners themselves, in the United Kingdom, the term vine applies almost exclusively to the grapevine. The term climber is used for all climbing plants, certain plants always grow as vines, while a few grow as vines only part of the time. For instance, poison ivy and bittersweet can grow as low shrubs when support is not available, a vine displays a growth form based on long stems. This has been a successful growth form for plants such as kudzu and Japanese honeysuckle. There are some tropical vines that develop skototropism, and grow away from the light, growth away from light allows the vine to reach a tree trunk, which it can then climb to brighter regions. The vine growth form may also enable plants to large areas quickly. This is the case with periwinkle and ground ivy and it is also an adaptation to life in areas where small patches of fertile soil are adjacent to exposed areas with more sunlight but little or no soil. A vine can root in the soil but have most of its leaves in the brighter, exposed area, the evolution of a climbing habit has been implicated as a key innovation associated with the evolutionary success and diversification of a number of taxonomic groups of plants. It has evolved independently in several plant families, using many different climbing methods such as and it directs its stem into a crevice in the bark of fibrous barked trees where the stem adopts a flattened profile and grows up the tree underneath the host trees outer bark. The fetterbush then sends out branches that emerge near the top of the tree and these may be divided into woody vines or lianas, such as wisteria, kiwifruit, and common ivy, and herbaceous vines, such as morning glory. One odd group of vining plants is the fern genus Lygodium, the stem does not climb, but rather the fronds do. The fronds unroll from the tip, and theoretically never stop growing, they can form thickets as they unroll over other plants, rockfaces, gardeners can use the tendency of climbing plants to grow quickly. If a plant display is wanted quickly, a climber can achieve this, climbers can be trained over walls, pergolas, fences, etc. Climbers can be grown over other plants to provide additional attraction, artificial support can also be provided. Some climbers climb by themselves, others need work, such as tying them in, vines widely differ in size, form and evolutionary origin. Darwin classified climbing groups based on their climbing method and he classified five classes of vines including twining plants, leaf climbers, tendril bearers, root climbers and hook climbers. Vines are unique in that they have multiple origins and a wide range of phenotypic plasticity
7.
Americas
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The Americas, also collectively called America, encompass the totality of the continents of North America and South America. Together they make up most of the land in Earths western hemisphere, along with their associated islands, they cover 8% of Earths total surface area and 28. 4% of its land area. The topography is dominated by the American Cordillera, a chain of mountains that runs the length of the west coast. The flatter eastern side of the Americas is dominated by river basins, such as the Amazon, St. Lawrence River / Great Lakes basin, Mississippi. Humans first settled the Americas from Asia between 42,000 and 17,000 years ago, a second migration of Na-Dene speakers followed later from Asia. The subsequent migration of the Inuit into the neoarctic around 3500 BCE completed what is regarded as the settlement by the indigenous peoples of the Americas. The first known European settlement in the Americas was by the Norse explorer Leif Ericson, however, the colonization never became permanent and was later abandoned. The voyages of Christopher Columbus from 1492 to 1502 resulted in permanent contact with European powers, diseases introduced from Europe and Africa devastated the indigenous peoples, and the European powers colonized the Americas. Mass emigration from Europe, including numbers of indentured servants. Decolonization of the Americas began with the American Revolution in 1776, the population is over 1 billion, with over 65% of them living in one of the three most populous countries. As of the beginning of the 2010s, the most populous urban agglomerations are Mexico City, New York, Sao Paulo, Los Angeles, Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro, all of them megacities. The name America was first recorded in 1507 in the Cosmographiae Introductio, apparently written by Matthias Ringmann and it first applied to both North and South America by Gerardus Mercator in 1538. Amerigen means land of Amerigo and derives from Amerigo and gen, America accorded with the feminine names of Asia, Africa, and Europa. When conceived as a continent, the form is generally the continent of America in the singular. However, without a context, singular America in English commonly refers to the United States of America. In some countries of the world, America is considered a continent encompassing the North America and South America subcontinents, the first inhabitants migrated into the Americas from Asia. Habitation sites are known in Alaska and the Yukon from at least 20,000 years ago, beyond that, the specifics of the Paleo-Indian migration to and throughout the Americas, including the dates and routes traveled, are subject to ongoing research and discussion. Widespread habitation of the Americas occurred during the glacial maximum
8.
Africa
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Africa is the worlds second-largest and second-most-populous continent. At about 30.3 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earths total surface area and 20.4 % of its land area. With 1.2 billion people as of 2016, it accounts for about 16% of the human population. The continent includes Madagascar and various archipelagos and it contains 54 fully recognized sovereign states, nine territories and two de facto independent states with limited or no recognition. Africas population is the youngest amongst all the continents, the age in 2012 was 19.7. Algeria is Africas largest country by area, and Nigeria by population, afarensis, Homo erectus, H. habilis and H. ergaster – with the earliest Homo sapiens found in Ethiopia being dated to circa 200,000 years ago. Africa straddles the equator and encompasses numerous climate areas, it is the continent to stretch from the northern temperate to southern temperate zones. Africa hosts a diversity of ethnicities, cultures and languages. In the late 19th century European countries colonized most of Africa, Africa also varies greatly with regard to environments, economics, historical ties and government systems. However, most present states in Africa originate from a process of decolonization in the 20th century, afri was a Latin name used to refer to the inhabitants of Africa, which in its widest sense referred to all lands south of the Mediterranean. This name seems to have referred to a native Libyan tribe. The name is connected with Hebrew or Phoenician ʿafar dust. The same word may be found in the name of the Banu Ifran from Algeria and Tripolitania, under Roman rule, Carthage became the capital of the province of Africa Proconsularis, which also included the coastal part of modern Libya. The Latin suffix -ica can sometimes be used to denote a land, the later Muslim kingdom of Ifriqiya, modern-day Tunisia, also preserved a form of the name. According to the Romans, Africa lay to the west of Egypt, while Asia was used to refer to Anatolia, as Europeans came to understand the real extent of the continent, the idea of Africa expanded with their knowledge. 25,4, whose descendants, he claimed, had invaded Libya, isidore of Seville in Etymologiae XIV.5.2. Suggests Africa comes from the Latin aprica, meaning sunny, massey, in 1881, stated that Africa is derived from the Egyptian af-rui-ka, meaning to turn toward the opening of the Ka. The Ka is the double of every person and the opening of the Ka refers to a womb or birthplace
9.
Tepal
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A tepal is one of the outer parts of a flower when these parts cannot easily be divided into two kinds, sepals and petals. The term was first proposed by Augustin Pyramus de Candolle in 1827, undifferentiated tepals are believed to be the ancestral condition in flowering plants. For example, Amborella, which is thought to have separated earliest in the evolution of flowering plants, has flowers with undifferentiated tepals, distinct petals and sepals would therefore have arisen by differentiation, probably in response to animal pollination. Tepals formed by similar sepals and petals are common in monocotyledons, in tulips, for example, the first and second whorls both contain structures that look like petals. These are fused at the base to one large, showy. In lilies the organs in the first whorl are separate from the second, where sepals and petals can in principle be distinguished, usage of the term tepal is not always consistent – some authors will refer to sepals and petals where others use tepals in the same context. In some plants the flowers have no petals, and all the tepals are sepals modified to look like petals and these organs are described as petaloid, for example, the sepals of hellebores. When the undifferentiated tepals resemble petals, they are referred to as petaloid, as in petaloid monocots. Since they include Liliales, a name is lilioid monocots. Terms used in the description of tepals include pubescent, puberulent, tepal shape is described in similar terms to those used for leaves. Plant Systematics - Jones, Samuel - McGraw-Hill 1979 ISBN 0-07-032795-5
10.
Drupe
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In botany, a drupe is an indehiscent fruit in which an outer fleshy part surrounds a shell of hardened endocarp with a seed inside. These fruits usually develop from a carpel, and mostly from flowers with superior ovaries. Other fleshy fruits may have an enclosure that comes from the seed coat surrounding the seed. The term drupaceous is applied to a fruit which has the structure and texture of a drupe, the boundary between a drupe and a berry is not always clear. Thus some sources describe the fruit of species of the genus Persea, one definition of berry requires the endocarp to be less than 2 mm thick, other fruits with a stony endocarp being drupes. In marginal cases, terms such as drupaceous or drupe-like may be used, the term stone fruit can be a synonym for drupe or, more typically, it can mean just the fruit of the genus Prunus. Freestone refers to a drupe having a stone which can be removed from the flesh with ease, the flesh is not attached to the stone and does not need to be cut to free the stone. Freestone varieties of fruits are preferred for uses that require removal of the stone. Freestone plums are preferred for making homegrown prunes, and freestone sour cherries are preferred for making pies, clingstone refers to a drupe having a stone which cannot easily be removed from the flesh. The flesh is attached strongly to the stone and must be cut to free the stone, clingstone varieties of fruits in the genus Prunus are preferred as table fruit and for jams, because the flesh of clingstone fruits tends to be more tender and juicy throughout. Tryma is a term for such nut-like drupes that are difficult to categorize. Hickory nuts and walnuts in the Juglandaceae family grow within a husk, these fruits are technically drupes or drupaceous nuts. Many drupes, with their sweet, fleshy outer layer, attract the attention of animals as a food, and the plant population benefits from the resulting dispersal of its seeds. The endocarp is sometimes dropped after the part is eaten, but is often swallowed, passing through the digestive tract. This passage through the tract can reduce the thickness of the endocarp. The process is known as scarification, typical drupes include apricots, olives, peaches, plums, cherries, mangoes and amlas. The coconut is also a drupe, but the mesocarp is fibrous or dry, so this type of fruit is classified as a simple dry, unlike other drupes, the coconut seed is unlikely to be dispersed by being swallowed by fauna, due to its large size. It can, however, float extremely long distances across oceans, bramble fruits are aggregates of drupelets
11.
United States Department of Agriculture
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Approximately 80% of USDAs $140 billion budget goes to the Food and Nutrition Service program. The largest component of the FNS budget is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, after the resignation of Thomas Vilsack on January 13,2017 and the departure of President Barack Obama from office on January 20,2017, the acting Secretary of Agriculture is Michael Young. Activities in this include the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which provides healthy food to over 40 million low-income. The USDA also is concerned with assisting farmers and food producers with the sale of crops and it plays a role in overseas aid programs by providing surplus foods to developing countries. This aid can go through USAID, foreign governments, international bodies such as World Food Program, the Agricultural Act of 1949, section 416 and Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act of 1954, also known as Food for Peace, provides the legal basis of such actions. The USDA is a partner of the World Cocoa Foundation, early in its history, the economy of the United States was largely agrarian. Officials in the government had long sought new and improved varieties of seeds, plants. In 1837 Henry Leavitt Ellsworth, a Yale-educated attorney interested in improving agriculture, became Commissioner of Patents and he began collecting and distributing new varieties of seeds and plants through members of the Congress and agricultural societies. In 1839, Congress established the Agricultural Division within the Patent Office and allotted $1,000 for the collection of agricultural statistics, Ellsworth was called the Father of the Department of Agriculture. In 1849, the Patent Office was transferred to the newly created Department of the Interior, in the ensuing years, agitation for a separate bureau of agriculture within the department or a separate department devoted to agriculture kept recurring. Lincoln called it the peoples department, in the 1880s, varied advocacy groups were lobbying for Cabinet representation. Business interests sought a Department of Commerce and Industry, and farmers tried to raise the Department of Agriculture to Cabinet rank, finally, on February 9,1889, President Grover Cleveland signed a bill into law elevating the Department of Agriculture to Cabinet level. In 1887, the Hatch Act provided for the funding of agricultural experiment stations in each state. The Smith-Lever Act of 1914 then funded cooperative extension services in each state to teach agriculture, home economics, with these and similar provisions, the USDA reached out to every county of every state. During the Great Depression, farming remained a way of life for millions of Americans. The Department of Agricultures Bureau of Home Economics, established in 1923, published shopping advice and recipes to stretch family budgets and make food go farther. USDA helped ensure that continued to be produced and distributed to those who needed it, assisted with loans for small landowners. The Department of Agriculture was authorized a budget for Fiscal Year 2015 of $139.7 billion, the Washington Post reports that he said There are days when I have literally nothing to do, he recalled thinking as he weighed his decision to quit
12.
Lauraceae
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Lauraceae are the laurel family, that includes the true laurel and its closest relatives. This family of flowering plants comprises about 2850 known species in about 45 genera worldwide and they are dicotyledons, and occur mainly in warm temperate and tropical regions, especially Southeast Asia and South America. Many are aromatic evergreen trees or shrubs, but some, such as Sassafras, are deciduous, Cassytha is a genus unique to the Lauraceae family in that it is a genus of parasitic vines. The family has a distribution in tropical and warm climates. The Lauraceae are important components of tropical forests ranging from low-lying to montane, in several forested regions, Lauraceae are among the top five families in terms of the number of species present. Laurel forests of various types occur on most continents and on many major islands, although the taxonomy of the Lauraceae is still not settled, conservative estimates suggest some 52 genera worldwide, including 3,000 to 3,500 species. Compared to other plant families, the taxonomy of Lauraceae still is poorly understood and this is partly due to its great diversity, the difficulty of identifying the species, and partly because of inadequate investment in taxonomic work. Recent monographs on small and medium-sized genera of Lauraceae have revealed many new species, similar increases in the numbers of species recognised in other larger genera are to be expected. Most of the Lauraceae are evergreen trees in habit, exceptions include some two dozen species of Cassytha, all of which are obligately parasitic vines. The fruits of Lauraceae are drupes, one-seeded fleshy fruit with a hard layer, however, the endocarp is very thin, so the fruit resemble a one-seeded berry. In some Lindera species, the fruit have a hypocarpium at the base of the fruit, relict forests retain endemic fauna and flora in communities of great value in inferring the palaeontological succession and climate change that followed the breakups of the supercontinents. Many Lauraceae contain high concentrations of essential oils, some of which are valued for spices and perfumes, within the plants, most such substances are components of irritant or toxic sap or tissues that repel or poison many herbivorous or parasitic organisms. Some are valued in cooking, for example, bay leaves are an ingredient in European, American. Avocados are important oil-rich fruit that are cultivated in warm climates around the world, many species are exploited for timber. Some species are valued as sources of medicinal material, conversely, some species, though commercially valuable in some countries, are regarded as aggressive invaders in other regions. For example, Cinnamomum camphora, though a valued ornamental and medicinal plant, is so invasive as to have declared a weed in subtropical forested areas of South Africa. Lauraceae flowers are protogynous, often with a complex flowering system to prevent inbreeding, the fruits are an important food source for birds, on which some Palaeognathae are highly dependent. Other birds that rely heavily on the fruit for their diets include members of the families Cotingidae, Columbidae, Trogonidae, Turdidae, birds that are specialised frugivores tend to eat the whole fruit and regurgitate seeds intact, thereby releasing the seeds in favourable situations for germination
