Carnivorous Plants Website
Carnivorous Plants in the Wilderness
by Makoto Honda
 
Phylogeny
Classification
List of Species
World Map

 Poales
 
    Bromeliaceae
 
      Brocchinia (2)
        Catopsis (1)
    Eriocaulaceae
 
      Paepalanthus (1)
 
Oxalidales
    C
ephalotaceae

   
     Cephalotus (1)
 Caryophyllales
    Droseraceae

   
     Drosera (150)
  
      Dionaea (1)
   
     Aldrovanda (1)
    Nepenthaceae
   
     Nepenthes (93)
    Drosophyllaceae  
   
     Drosophyllum (1)
    Dioncophyllaceae
  
      Triphyophyllum (1)
 Ericales
    S
arraceniaceae

  
     Sarracenia (8)
   
     Darlingtonia (1)
   
     Heliamphora (9)
 
  Roridulaceae 
   
     Roridula (2)
 
Lamiales
    Byblidaceae
   
     Byblis (5)  
 
  Martyniaceae
   
     Ibicella (2)
  
      Proboscidea (1)
 
   Lentibulariaceae
   
     Pinguicula (91)         Utricularia (218)
 
      Genlisea (22)
 


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TREE OF PLANTS

Life emerged on earth some four billion years ago. Going forward, life kept diversifying. Evolution has two steps: Genetic mutation and natural selection. Genetic mutation - the trigger for evolution - is random in nature and occurs at some constant rate in organisms. Natural selection that follows favors traits more suited for a given environment. In the test of survival, a complex interplay between organisms and their ever-changing environment determines who are retained and carries the genes deemed preferable to the next generation.

A possible tree of life is shown below. Not much had happened for the first few billion years. The branch for algae diverged around 1.5 billion years ago. And, animals and plants started to diverge around 500 million years ago. 

In the history of green plants dating back some 500 million years, the flowering plants (angiosperms), the most dominant land plants today, appeared on earth some 140 million years ago. Angiosperms became widespread around 100 million years ago and became dominant 60-70 million years ago, around the time of the demise of dinosaurs.


 


 


 2010-March-22. Last update: 2010-March-22 

Tree of Plants. (c) 2010 Makoto Honda. All Rights Reserved.

 References: Kunio Iwatsuki, Ch.4,Evolution of Plants,Encyclopedia of Plants,Asakura-Shoten,2009.,http://en.wikipedia.org, www.ucmp.berkeley.edu