1.
Dracaena draco
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Not to be confused with the related Dracaena cinnabari, the dragon blood tree native to Socotra. It is the symbol of the island of Tenerife, together with the blue chaffinch. Dracaena draco is a monocot with a growth habit currently placed in the asparagus family. When young it has a single stem, at about 10–15 years of age the stem stops growing and produces a first flower spike with white, lily-like perfumed flowers, followed by coral berries. Soon a crown of terminal buds appears and the plant starts branching, each branch grows for about 10–15 years and re-branches, so a mature plant has an umbrella-like habit. It grows slowly, requiring ten years to reach 1.2 metres in height. Being a monocotyledon, it does not display any annual or growth rings so the age of the tree can only be estimated by the number of branching points before reaching the canopy. The specimen called El Drago Milenario growing at Icod de los Vinos in northwest Tenerife is the oldest living plant of this species and its age was estimated in 1975 to be around 250 years, with a maximum of 365 years, not several thousand as had previously been claimed. It is also the largest D. draco tree alive and its massive trunk comes from the contribution of clusters of aerial roots that emerge from the bases of lowest branches and grow down to the soil. Descending along the trunk, they cling tightly to the trunk, integrate with it, there is considerable genetic variation within the Canary Island dragon trees. The form found on Gran Canaria is now treated as a species, Dracaena tamaranae. The form endemic to La Palma initially branches very low with numerous, there is a forest of such trees at Las Tricias, Garafia district, La Palma. When the bark or leaves are cut they secrete a reddish resin, dragons blood has a number of traditional medical uses, although dragons blood obtained from Dracaena draco was not known until the 15th century. The Guanches worshiped a specimen in Tenerife, and hollowed its trunk into a small sanctuary, humboldt saw it at the time of his visit. It was 70 feet tall and 45 feet in circumference, and was estimated to be 6000 years old and it was destroyed by a storm in 1868. Dracaena draco is cultivated and widely available as a tree for parks, gardens. It has gained the Royal Horticultural Societys Award of Garden Merit, list of animals and plants symbols of the Canary Islands Wildlife of Cape Verde#Flora Arkive, Dracaena draco factsheet. Benabid, A. & Cuzin, F. Dragon tree populations in Morocco, comptes Rendus de lAcademie des Sciences Serie III Sciences de la Vie 320, 267-277
2.
Conservation status
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The conservation status of a group of organisms indicates whether the group still exists and how likely the group is to become extinct in the near future. Various systems of conservation status exist and are in use at international, multi-country, the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species is the best known worldwide conservation status listing and ranking system. Also included are species that have gone extinct since 500 AD, when discussing the IUCN Red List, the official term threatened is a grouping of three categories, critically endangered, endangered, and vulnerable. Widespread and abundant taxa are included in this category, Data deficient – Not enough data to make an assessment of its risk of extinction Not evaluated – Has not yet been evaluated against the criteria. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora aims to ensure that trade in specimens of wild animals. Many countries require CITES permits when importing plants and animals listed on CITES, in the European Union, the Birds and Habitats Directives are the legal instruments that evaluate the conservation status within the EU of species and habitats. NatureServe conservation status focuses on Latin America, United States, Canada, and it has been developed by scientists from NatureServe, The Nature Conservancy, and the network of natural heritage programs and data centers. It is increasingly integrated with the IUCN Red List system and its categories for species include, presumed extinct, possibly extinct, critically imperiled, imperiled, vulnerable, apparently secure, and secure. The system also allows ambiguous or uncertain ranks including inexact numeric ranks, NatureServe adds a qualifier for captive or cultivated only, which has a similar meaning to the IUCN Red List extinct in the wild status. The Red Data Book of the Russian Federation is used within the Russian Federation, in Australia, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 describes lists of threatened species, ecological communities and threatening processes. The categories resemble those of the 1994 IUCN Red List Categories & Criteria, prior to the EPBC Act, a simpler classification system was used by the Endangered Species Protection Act 1992. Some state and territory governments also have their own systems for conservation status, in Belgium, the Flemish Research Institute for Nature and Forest publishes an online set of more than 150 nature indicators in Dutch. In Canada, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada is a group of experts that assesses and designates which wild species are in danger of disappearing from Canada. Under the Species at Risk Act, it is up to the federal government, in China, the State, provinces and some counties have determined their key protected wildlife species. There is the China red data book, in Finland, a large number of species are protected under the Nature Conservation Act, and through the EU Habitats Directive and EU Birds Directive. In Germany, the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation publishes red lists of endangered species, india has the Wild Life Protection Act,1972, Amended 2003 and the Biological Diversity Act,2002. In Japan, the Ministry of Environment publishes a Threatened Wildlife of Japan Red Data Book, in the Netherlands, the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality publishes a list of threatened species, and conservation is enforced by the Nature Conservation Act 1998. Species are also protected through the Wild Birds and Habitats Directives, in New Zealand, the Department of Conservation publishes the New Zealand Threat Classification System lists
3.
Vulnerable species
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Vulnerability is mainly caused by habitat loss or destruction of the species home. Vulnerable habitat or species are monitored and can become increasingly threatened, some species listed as vulnerable may be common in captivity, an example being the military macaw. There are currently 5196 animals and 6789 plants classified as vulnerable, compared with 1998 levels of 2815 and 3222, practices such as Cryoconservation of animal genetic resources have been enforced in efforts to conserve vulnerable breeds of livestock specifically. The International Union for Conservation of Nature uses several criteria to enter species in this category, a reduction of at least 20%, projected or suspected to be met within the next ten years or three generations, whichever is the longer, based on any of, or above. Population is characterised by a restriction in its area of occupancy or in the number of locations. E) Quantitative analysis showing the probability of extinction in the wild is at least 10% within 100 years
4.
IUCN Red List
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The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, founded in 1964, is the worlds most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biological species. The International Union for Conservation of Nature is the main authority on the conservation status of species. A series of Regional Red Lists are produced by countries or organizations, the IUCN Red List is set upon precise criteria to evaluate the extinction risk of thousands of species and subspecies. These criteria are relevant to all species and all regions of the world, the aim is to convey the urgency of conservation issues to the public and policy makers, as well as help the international community to try to reduce species extinction. Major species assessors include BirdLife International, the Institute of Zoology, the World Conservation Monitoring Centre, collectively, assessments by these organizations and groups account for nearly half the species on the Red List. The IUCN aims to have the category of every species re-evaluated every five years if possible, the 1964 IUCN Red List of Threatened Plants used the older pre-criteria Red List assessment system. Plants listed may not, therefore, appear in the current Red List, IUCN advise that is best to check both the online Red List and the 1997 plants Red List publication. The 2006 Red List, released on 4 May 2006 evaluated 40,168 species as a whole, plus an additional 2,160 subspecies, varieties, aquatic stocks, on 12 September 2007, the World Conservation Union released the 2007 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Russ Mittermeier, chief of Swiss-based IUCNs Primate Specialist Group, stated that 16,306 species are endangered with extinction,188 more than in 2006, the Red List includes the Sumatran orangutan in the Critically Endangered category and the Bornean orangutan in the Endangered category. The study shows at least 1,141 of the 5,487 mammals on Earth are known to be threatened with extinction, and 836 are listed as Data Deficient. The Red List of 2012 was released 19 July 2012 at Rio+20 Earth Summit, nearly 2,000 species were added, the IUCN assessed a total of 63,837 species which revealed 19,817 are threatened with extinction. With 3,947 described as endangered and 5,766 as endangered. At threat are 41% of amphibian species, 33% of reef-building corals, 30% of conifers, 25% of mammals, the IUCN Red List has listed 132 species of plants and animals from India as Critically Endangered. Extinct – No known individuals remaining, extinct in the wild – Known only to survive in captivity, or as a naturalized population outside its historic range. Critically endangered – Extremely high risk of extinction in the wild, Endangered – High risk of extinction in the wild. Vulnerable – High risk of endangerment in the wild, near threatened – Likely to become endangered in the near future. Does not qualify for a more at-risk category, widespread and abundant taxa are included in this category. Data deficient – Not enough data to make an assessment of its risk of extinction, Not evaluated – Has not yet been evaluated against the criteria
5.
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
6.
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
7.
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
8.
Monocotyledon
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Monocotyledons, commonly referred to as monocots, are flowering plants whose seeds typically contain only one embryonic leaf, or cotyledon. However, molecular research has shown that while the monocots form a monophyletic group or clade. Monocots have almost always recognized as a group, but with various taxonomic ranks. The APG III system of 2009 recognises a clade called monocots, the monocots include about 60,000 species. The largest family in this group by number of species are the orchids, about half as many species belong to the true grasses, which are economically the most important family of monocots. In agriculture the majority of the biomass produced comes from monocots and these include not only major grains, but also forage grasses, sugar cane, and the bamboos. Other economically important monocot crops include various palms, bananas, gingers and their relatives, turmeric and cardamom, asparagus and the onions and garlic family. Additionally most of the bulbs, plants cultivated for their blooms, such as lilies, daffodils, irises, amaryllis, cannas, bluebells. The monocots or monocotyledons have, as the name implies, a single cotyledon, or embryonic leaf, from a diagnostic point of view the number of cotyledons is neither a particularly useful characteristic, nor is it completely reliable. Nevertheless, monocots are sufficiently distinctive that there has rarely been disagreement as to membership of this group, however, morphological features that reliably characterise major clades are rare. Thus monocots are distinguishable from other angiosperms both in terms of their uniformity and diversity, although largely herbaceous, some arboraceous monocots reach great height, length and mass. The latter include agaves, palms, pandans, and bamboos and this creates challenges in water transport that monocots deal with in various ways. Some such as species of Yucca develop anomalous secondary growth, while palm trees, the axis undergoes primary thickening, that progresses from internode to internode, resulting in a typical inverted conical shape of the basal primary axis. The limited conductivity also contributes to limited branching of the stems, despite these limitations a wide variety of adaptive growth forms has resulted from epiphytic orchids and bromeliads to submarine Alismatales and mycotrophic Burmanniaceae and Triuridaceae. Other monocots, particularly Poales have adopted a life form. Leaves The cotyledon, the primordial Angiosperm leaf consists of a proximal leaf base or hypophyll, in moncots the hypophyll tends to be the dominant part in contrast to other angiosperms. Mature monocot leaves are narrow and linear, forming a sheathing around the stem at its base. There is usually only one leaf per node because the leaf base encompasses more than half the circumference, the evolution of this monocot characteristic has been attributed to developmental differences in early zonal differentiation rather than meristem activity
9.
Asparagales
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Asparagales is an order of plants in modern classification systems such as the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group and the Angiosperm Phylogeny Web. The order takes its name from the type family Asparagaceae and is placed in the monocots amongst the lilioid monocots, the order has only recently been recognized in classification systems. It was first put forward by Huber in 1977 and later taken up in the Dahlgren system of 1985 and then the APG in 1998,2003 and 2009. Before this, many of its families were assigned to the old order Liliales, DNA sequence analysis indicated that many of the taxa previously included in Liliales should actually be redistributed over three orders, Liliales, Asparagales and Dioscoreales. The boundaries of the Asparagales and of its families have undergone a series of changes in recent years, future research may lead to further changes and ultimately greater stability. In the APG circumscription, Asparagales is the largest order of monocots with 14 families,1,122 genera, the order is clearly circumscribed on the basis of molecular phylogenetics, but is difficult to define morphologically, since its members are structurally diverse. Most species of Asparagales are herbaceous perennials, although some are climbers, the order also contains many geophytes. According to telomere sequence, at least two evolutionary switch-points happened within the order, basal sequence is formed by TTTAGGG like in majority of higher plants. Basal motif was changed to vertebrate-like TTAGGG and finally the most divergent motif CTCGGTTATGGG appears in Allium, one of the defining characteristics of the order is the presence of phytomelanin, a black pigment present in the seed coat, creating a dark crust. Phytomelanin is found in most families of the Asparagales, the leaves of almost all species form a tight rosette, either at the base of the plant or at the end of the stem, but occasionally along the stem. The flowers are not particularly distinctive, being lily type, with six tepals, from an economic point of view, the order Asparagales is second in importance within the monocots to the order Poales. Species are used as food and flavourings, as cut flowers, and as garden ornamentals. Thus although most species in the order are herbaceous, some no more than 15 cm high, there are a number of climbers, as well as several genera forming trees, succulent genera occur in several families. Almost all species have a cluster of leaves, either at the base of the plant or at the end of a more-or-less woody stem as with Yucca. In some cases the leaves are produced along the stem, the flowers are in the main not particularly distinctive, being of a general lily type, with six tepals, either free or fused from the base and up to six stamina. They are frequently clustered at the end of the plant stem and they are generally geophytes, but with linear leaves, and a lack of fine reticular venation. The seeds characteristically have the external epidermis either obliterated, or if present, have a layer of black carbonaceous phytomelanin in species with dry fruits. The inner part of the coat is generally collapsed, in contrast to Liliales whose seeds have a well developed outer epidermis, lack phytomelanin
10.
Asparagaceae
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Asparagaceae is a family of flowering plants, placed in the order Asparagales of the monocots. In earlier classification systems, the species involved were often treated as belonging to the family Liliaceae, the revised APG III system of 2009 allows only the broader sense. A paper published at the time proposed seven subfamilies to correspond to the originally separate families. Unless otherwise noted, the alphabetical list below is based on genera accepted by the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families as in the family Asparagaceae, the reference against the subfamily name is to the source which places the genus in that subfamily. Asparagaceae in L. Watson and M. J. Dallwitz, the families of flowering plants, descriptions, illustrations, identification, information retrieval. Https, //web. archive. org/web/20070103200438/http, //delta-intkey. com, 80/ Liliaceae in Flora of North America NCBI Taxonomy Browser links at CSDL, Texas
