Great article super interesting I love gymnosperms and ginkgos are sooo weird they are the only living member of their genus, family, order, class, division! Ginkgo trees have been around for roughly 270 million years and barely changed!
So interesting! Pines are so central, somehow, and yet much of this is new to me.
Also, I got hung up on “and flowering plants, whose count rockets to ~300,000.”! That seems such a low number, somehow.
I'd have guessed that the number for flowering plant species would be much higher. If you'd put it as a multiple-choice ”guess the number of flowering plant species on the planet,” and given the options as 10,000, 100,000, 300,000, and 1,000,000, I'd probably have guessed the last. I wonder if others would have also. Fascinating how much one can not know of things!
Very glad to hear that, thank you for reading! I agree about the species count actually, although the contrast with gymnosperms is still amazing, my intuition would have gone for more as well. It does depend somewhat on the taxonomy school of thought (“species” is often actually difficult to define), and there are probably still plenty of undescribed species especially in the tropics. But from what I’ve read the number isn’t expected to get that much higher.
Astonishing. But glad to know that even someone with knowledge would have guessed higher 😊. A species is essentially the lowest category, is that right? Ie, everything that Linneaus would have put a second word onto the name of? (I still love that his second word for domesticated flax was “usitatissimum” or “most useful”.) Or am I confused, and it is one category up?
Also, there are orders of magnitudes more species of insects/arthropods, for some reason, over a million described and a much higher rate of estimated undescribed species.
I think that I must have read that somewhere at some point, about insects, and that’s why I assumed that there would be more species of flowering plants. I mean, if every kind of snowdrop, say, is a different species, then 300,000 overall feels distressing small. One feels instinctively that we, and the bees, need a larger number.
You've hit on an interesting example! According to Wikipedia (a pretty detailed article), the current number of wild Galanthus species is around 20, but there's historically been disagreement when deciding what counts as a species--depending on traits, DNA, etc; and there may be new ones still. However, only one species, G. nivalis, grows naturally in most of Europe--and it's been bred into hundreds of different cultivars. But still only one species.
yes, you're right! There are "subspecies" and "varieties" but these are less taxonomically firm. (A mnemonic is "Kings Play Chess On Fine Grained Sand" for Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species.)
And yes it's fun to see what Linnaeus and others thought about at the time. Little time capsules.
Thank you!! I meant to follow up immediately with a follow-up comment saying please don’t feel obliged to answer, but got interrupted before I could post it. Am glad I did, as this is great. The mnemonic is going straight into my mental library!
I found this fascinating. I have collected cones for years, as they are a favourite subject to draw, but knew little about them. Thank you for such an interesting post.
Thank you Deborah! I’m so happy to supplement the natural fascination and beauty of cones with a bit of context. This is still so general—it would be fun to do more of a deep dive on the biology of cones!
Gymnosperms are such a weird and fascinating group of plants! Also I love pinaceae!
They don’t get enough love!
Great article super interesting I love gymnosperms and ginkgos are sooo weird they are the only living member of their genus, family, order, class, division! Ginkgo trees have been around for roughly 270 million years and barely changed!
Agreed! Ginkgos are amazing.
So interesting! Pines are so central, somehow, and yet much of this is new to me.
Also, I got hung up on “and flowering plants, whose count rockets to ~300,000.”! That seems such a low number, somehow.
I'd have guessed that the number for flowering plant species would be much higher. If you'd put it as a multiple-choice ”guess the number of flowering plant species on the planet,” and given the options as 10,000, 100,000, 300,000, and 1,000,000, I'd probably have guessed the last. I wonder if others would have also. Fascinating how much one can not know of things!
Very glad to hear that, thank you for reading! I agree about the species count actually, although the contrast with gymnosperms is still amazing, my intuition would have gone for more as well. It does depend somewhat on the taxonomy school of thought (“species” is often actually difficult to define), and there are probably still plenty of undescribed species especially in the tropics. But from what I’ve read the number isn’t expected to get that much higher.
Astonishing. But glad to know that even someone with knowledge would have guessed higher 😊. A species is essentially the lowest category, is that right? Ie, everything that Linneaus would have put a second word onto the name of? (I still love that his second word for domesticated flax was “usitatissimum” or “most useful”.) Or am I confused, and it is one category up?
Also, there are orders of magnitudes more species of insects/arthropods, for some reason, over a million described and a much higher rate of estimated undescribed species.
I think that I must have read that somewhere at some point, about insects, and that’s why I assumed that there would be more species of flowering plants. I mean, if every kind of snowdrop, say, is a different species, then 300,000 overall feels distressing small. One feels instinctively that we, and the bees, need a larger number.
You've hit on an interesting example! According to Wikipedia (a pretty detailed article), the current number of wild Galanthus species is around 20, but there's historically been disagreement when deciding what counts as a species--depending on traits, DNA, etc; and there may be new ones still. However, only one species, G. nivalis, grows naturally in most of Europe--and it's been bred into hundreds of different cultivars. But still only one species.
Oh, that’s immensely reassuring! In that case — if all of the different cultivated snowdrops are a single species — then I feel much better.
Though maybe the different kinds of snowdrops are varieties, rather than species. That would be reassuring 😊
Aha I didn't see this until I posted my reply. Yes!
yes, you're right! There are "subspecies" and "varieties" but these are less taxonomically firm. (A mnemonic is "Kings Play Chess On Fine Grained Sand" for Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species.)
And yes it's fun to see what Linnaeus and others thought about at the time. Little time capsules.
Thank you!! I meant to follow up immediately with a follow-up comment saying please don’t feel obliged to answer, but got interrupted before I could post it. Am glad I did, as this is great. The mnemonic is going straight into my mental library!
Fascinating, clearly explained and beautifully illustrated, thank you!
Thank you John! Very glad to hear that.
I can see you being a professor with beautiful tree and come slideshows. Anne!
Thank you Diane, me too!!
I found this fascinating. I have collected cones for years, as they are a favourite subject to draw, but knew little about them. Thank you for such an interesting post.
Thank you Deborah! I’m so happy to supplement the natural fascination and beauty of cones with a bit of context. This is still so general—it would be fun to do more of a deep dive on the biology of cones!