25 Most Diverse Plant Families

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smiln32 Oklahoma City, OK(Zone 7a) Sep 01, 2004

The 25 Most Diverse Plant Families (per http://www.bbg.org/gar2/topics/botany/class_diverse.html)

Of the 380 flowering plant families, the following have the highest numbers of species:

1. Asteraceae-Aster family (1,317 genera, 21,000 species)
2. Orchidaceae-Orchid family (795 genera, 17,500 species)
3. Fabaceae-Pea family (657 genera, 16,400 species)
4. Rubiaceae-Madder family (637 genera, 10,700 species)
5. Poaceae-Grass family (737 genera, 7,950 species)
6. Euphorbiaceae-Spurge family (326 genera, 7,750 species)
7. Lamiaceae-Mint family (224 genera, 5,600 species)
8. Melastomataceae-Melastome family (215 genera, 4,750 species)
9. Liliaceae-Lily family (294 genera, 4,550 species)
10. Scrophulariaceae-Figwort family (222 genera, 4,500 species)
11. Acanthaceae-Acanthus family (357 genera, 4,350 species)
12. Myrtaceae-Myrtle family(121 genera, 3,850 species)
13. Cyperaceae-Sedge family (115 genera, 3,600 species)
14. Ericaceae-Heath family (103 genera, 3,350 species)
15. Apiaceae-Carrot family (420 genera, 3,100 species)
16. Rosaceae-Rose family (107 genera, 3,100 species)
17. Brassicaceae-Mustard family (390 genera, 3,000 species)
18. Araceae-Arum family (106 genera, 2,950 species)
19. Asclepiadaceae-Milkweed family (348 genera, 2,900 species)
20. Arecaceae-Palm family (207 genera, 2,675 species)
21. Solanaceae-Potato family (90 genera, 2,600 species)
22. Boraginaceae-Borage family (156 genera, 2,500 species)
23. Gesneriaceae-Gesneriad family (146 genera, 2,400 species)
24. Lauraceae-Laurel family (45 species, 2,200 species)
25. Bromeliaceae-Bromeliad family (46 genera, 2,110 species)


Currently in the Plants Database, there are 328 families of plants listed, 2914 genera, and 7249 species. This changes by the hour as folks add new information. As you can see, there is a lot of work that still needs to be done in the PDB. Adding information is easy. Finding it is often interesting and leads to learning more and more about plants and gardening. Search the web, check out your garden books... whatever it takes. Help add some information each day, just a little, and it will benefit all of us down the road. Who knows, maybe one of those 4550 species in the Lily family might be just what your garden needs - and we'll have the information here at Dave's because someone took the time to make a difference. :)

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