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pcplantdb - Re: [pcplantdb] What is a tree?

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  • From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lfl@intrex.net>
  • To: pcplantdb@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [pcplantdb] What is a tree?
  • Date: Wed, 08 Sep 2004 15:51:07 -0700

Richard Morris wrote:

So it seems that treeness does not really tie well with the typical
plant systematics. Which leeds to a question "what makes a tree a tree?"
Is there a tree gene? How come some plants switch it on and other plants
don't?

A plant is a tree when it is not an annual or a biennial but a very long-lived
perennial. Scientifically

Tree is defined here: http://www.hyperdictionary.com/search.aspx?define=tree
as:
1. (Bot.) Any perennial woody plant of considerable size
(usually over twenty feet high) and growing with a single
trunk.

Note: The kind of tree referred to, in any particular case,
is often indicated by a modifying word; as forest tree,
fruit tree, palm tree, apple tree, pear tree, etc.

And you have "tree form" ornamental, native, economic, vegetable, herb, fruit specimen plants normally prostrate, mid height, dwarf, semi-dwarf and standard, including such things as rose standards and walking stick collards.

Height or number of trunks doesn't apply as with bonsai, Japanese cutleaf red
maple
multistem birch, crepe myrtle.

Do plant taxonomists define trees as "woody perennials"?

Treeness is a very different sort of thing to "has a backbone"
a feature which is is inherited though a large part of the animal
kingdom, there was some root animal which had a backbone and all its
descendants: fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals all share this
property. Flowering plants also fit well with the botanical systematics, all flowering plants (grasses, lilies, orchids, brasicas, roses, oaks
willows, the pea family, ...) belong to the grouping Angiosperm a well define section of the plant kingdom.

I guess annual, biennial, perennial, perennial-tree would be attributes
scondary to
taxonomic location.


--
L.F.London
lfl@intrex.net
http://market-farming.com
http://www.ibiblio.org/ecolandtech




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