SPECIES INFO
Begonia genus is native to the tropics and appears to be centered in South America. There are about 900 species in this genus. These can be herbs, shrubs, and even vines. The alternate leaves can have unusual colors and shapes. This genus has given rise to numerous garden hybrids that are valued for both their flowers and leaves. There are about nine species established in greater North America.
Begonia Family (Begoniaceae) contains about 800 to 900 species (most are in the genus Begonia) that are found primarily in the New World tropics. Many species of Begonias are sold as ornamentals. There are ten species in two different genera growing in greater North America.
This family is found from Mexico south to most of tropical South America. This is also found from central and southern Africa east to India, South East Asia, and China. This is found from SE Asia south through Malaysia to most of Indonesia and New Guinea.
Frequently, the leaves are not symmetrical. Many of the well known cultivars have multicolored leaves. The leaves are mostly alternate, mostly simple, and most petioled, and most with a palmately nerved and lobed nature.
Parietales Order is a large assemblage containing over thirty different families. The violets are a well-known group in this order. The St. Johnswort family is another well known family in this order. Passion flowers also belong here.
Some authors argue this order should be divided, and others have divided it into several orders.
Dicots (Dicotyledoneae Class) are the predominant group of vascular plants on earth. With the exception of the grasses (Monocots) and the Conifers (Gymnosperms), most of the larger plants that one encounters are Dicots. Dicots are characterized by having a seed with two outer shell coverings.
Some of the more primitive Dicots are the typical hardwood trees (oaks, birches, hickories, etc). The more advanced Dicots include many of the Composite (Aster) Family flowers like the Dandelion, Aster, Thistles, and Sunflowers. Although many Monocots reach a very high degree of specialization, most botanists feel that the Dicots represent the most advanced group of plants.
Seed plants (Phylum Embryophyta) are generally grouped into one large phylum containing three major classes: the Gymnosperms, the Monocots, and the Dicots. (Some scientists separate the Gymnosperms into a separate phylum and refer to the remaining plants as flowering plants or Angiospermae.)
For North American counts of the number of species in each genus and family, the primary reference has been John T. Kartesz, author of A Synonymized Checklist of the Vascular Flora of the United States, Canada, and Greenland (1994). The geographical scope of his lists include, as part of greater North America, Hawaii, Alaska, Greenland, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.
Kartesz lists 21,757 species of vascular plants comprising the ferns, gymnosperms and flowering plants as being found in greater North America (including Alaska, Hawaii, Greenland, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
There are estimates within the scientific world that about half of the listed North American seed plants were originally native with the balance being comprised of Eurasian and tropical plants that have become established.
Plant kingdom contains a large variety of different organisms including mosses, ferns, and seed plants. Most plants manufacture their energy from sunlight and water. Identification of many species is difficult in that most individual plants have characteristics that have variables based on soil moisture, soil chemistry, and sunlight.
Because of the difficulty in learning and identifying different plant groups, specialists have emerged that study only a limited group of plants. These specialists revise the taxonomy and give us detailed descriptions and ranges of the various species. Their results are published in technical journals and written with highly specialized words that apply to a specific group.
On the other hand, there are the nature publishers. These people and companies undertake the challenging task of trying to provide easy to use pictures and descriptions to identify those species.
