Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Flowering plant
Summary
Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (ˌændʒiəˈspərmi:), commonly called angiosperms. They include all forbs (flowering plants without a woody stem), grasses and grass-like plants, a vast majority of broad-leaved trees, shrubs and vines, and most aquatic plants. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ἀγγεῖον /angeion ('container, vessel') and σπέρμα / sperma ('seed'), meaning that the seeds are enclosed within a fruit. They are by far the most diverse group of land plants with 64 orders, 416 families, approximately 13,000 known genera and 300,000 known species. Angiosperms were formerly called Magnoliophyta (mægˌnoʊliˈɒfətə,_-əˈfaɪtə).
Angiosperms are distinguished from the other seed-producing plants, the gymnosperms, by having flowers, xylem consisting of vessel elements instead of tracheids, endosperm within their seeds, and fruits that completely envelop the seeds.
The ancestors of flowering plants diverged from the common ancestor of all living gymnosperms before the end of the Carboniferous, over 300 million years ago. In the Cretaceous, angiosperms diversified explosively, becoming the dominant group of plants across the planet.
Agriculture is almost entirely dependent on angiosperms, and a small number of flowering plant families supply nearly all plant-based food and livestock feed. Rice, maize, and wheat provide half of the world's calorie intake, and all three plants are cereals from the Poaceae family (colloquially known as grasses). Other families provide materials such as wood, paper and cotton, and supply numerous ingredients for traditional and modern medicines. Flowering plants are also commonly grown for decorative purposes, with certain flowers playing a significant role in many cultures.
Out of the "Big Five" extinction events in Earth's history, only the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event had occurred while angiosperms dominated plant life on the planet.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.