#plant bracket

[plant-taxonomy-showdown]

Phylum Final Round!

Magnoliophyta vs Bryophyta

Magnoliophyta

Bryophyta

Voting ended onFeb 26, 2024

For the Phylum Level Champion!

Reminder: This is the final PHYLUM round. Winner goes on to classes!

Magnoliophyta (aka angiosperms, flowering plants): A large, diverse phylum with over 300,000 known species. Two of the more well-known sub-divisions are monocots (including grains, onion-like plants, and irises and lilies) and eudicots (including most leafy trees, a wide variety of flowers such as sunflowers and roses, and many food plants from coffee to cabbages.)

Bryophyta (aka mosses): Small but mighty, and among the most ancient of land plants. 95% of all moss species are in the class Bryopsida, while Sphagnopsida contains the bog-loving peat mosses.

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Bonus Round 1/Semi-finals: Rosids vs Basal Eudicots

Rosids vs Basal Eudicots

Rosids

Basal Eudicots

Voting ended onSep 20, 2024

Apples of Discord vs Sacred Lotus

Rosids: The romantic clade. Do you want not only a dozen roses, but also a nice glass of wine and some strawberries dipped in chocolate to go with them? Of course you do. Vote Rosids. (And yes, this is also the cannabis clade, so light up/grab your edibles.)

Basal Eudicots: Here be funky flowers: the sacred lotus, poppies, the king protea of South Africa and the waratah of Australia. Also, macademia nuts.

(What's a eudicot? The class that won the previous round. More info here. Many taxonomic categories can be divided up into "basal" and "core" members, the basal ones splitting off the evolutionary tree relatively early on, while the core ones have a more recent common ancestor.)

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Class Round 2: Eudicots vs Magnoliids

Eudicots vs Magnoliids

Eudicots

Magnoliids

Voting ended onMar 17, 2024

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme vs Bay Leaves and Black Pepper

Eudicots (“true dicots”): This is a ginormous class, containing almost all leafy trees, quite a lot of plants that humans get food from (including potatoes and all of the legumes), and the plants we get tea, coffee, and chocolate from. It also contains carnivorous plants, parasitic plants, and some very poisonous plants, as well as tobacco and cannabis.

Magnoliids: The third largest group of flowering plants, with over 10,000 species. Magnolias, tulip trees, bay laurels (as in crowned with laurels, as in the spaghetti sauce leaf), black pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg, avocados. Many species produce fragrant oils, including ylang ylang. MDMA (ecstacy) is derived from a chemical found in some Magnoliids trees.

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Bonus Round 1/Semi-finals: Asterids vs Other Core Eudicots!

Asterids vs Other Core Eudicots

Asterids

Other Core Eudicots

Voting ended onSep 20, 2024

Spiky vs Toxic

Asterids: Down to earth, practical, and here to mess you up. The clade of potatoes, olive oil, coffee, dandelions, tobacco, and poison hemlock. RIP Socrates.

Other Core Eudicots: An ornery bunch, here we’ve got carnivorous plants, cacti, spinach, currants, and…tumbleweed? Also sandlewood, because this paraphyletic group likes to smell nice when it goes into the ring.

(What's a eudicot? The class that won the previous round. More info here. Many taxonomic categories can be divided up into "basal" and "core" members, the basal ones splitting off the evolutionary tree relatively early on, while the core ones have a more recent common ancestor.)

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Bonus Round Finals! Basal Eudicots vs Asterids!

Basil Eudicots vs Asterids

Basil Eudicots

Asterids

Voting ended onSep 29, 2024

🌻 vs 🪷

Basal Eudicots: Here be funky flowers: the sacred lotus, poppies, the king protea of South Africa and the waratah of Australia. Also, macademia nuts.

Asterids: Down to earth, practical, and here to mess you up. The clade of potatoes, olive oil, coffee, dandelions, tobacco, and poison hemlock. RIP Socrates.

(Edit: Basal Eudicots with an A, not with an I, nothing to do with basil -- basil is in the asterids, actually -- OOPS guess I should have checked for typos before posting.)

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Phylum Semi-Finals

Pinophyta vs Bryophyta

Pinophyta

Bryophyta

Voting ended onFeb 18, 2024

Big Spiky Things vs Little Soft Things

Pinophyta (conifers) fun fact: Giant sequoias, Sequoiadendron giganteum, can grow over 300 feet tall, 30 feet in diameter, and live for over 3,000 years. They are the world's largest trees.

Bryophyta (mosses) fun fact: Mosses in the Sphagnum genus can hold 16-26 times as much water as their dry weight.

[plant-taxonomy-showdown]

Class Final Round!! Eudicots vs Monocots!

Eudicots vs Monocots

Eudicots

Monocots

Voting ended onApr 14, 2024

Grass (slang) vs Grass (literal)

Eudicots (“true dicots”): This is a ginormous class, containing almost all leafy trees, quite a lot of plants that humans get food from (including potatoes and all of the legumes), and the plants we get tea, coffee, and chocolate from. It also contains carnivorous plants, parasitic plants, and some very poisonous plants, as well as tobacco and cannabis.

Monocots: The second largest taxon in Magnoliophyta, with 70,000 species. Narrow leaves with parallel veins are a good sign you’re looking at a monocot, as are plants that grow from bulbs, like onions, garlic, and tulips. Do you need to touch grass? Monocot. Do you want to bake a cake? Wheat, sugar cane, and the orchids that produce vanilla extract are all monocots.

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Phylum Round 1

Pinophyta vs Chlorophyta

Pinophyta

Chlorophyta

Voting ended onJan 31, 2024

Pine Trees vs A Different Type of Green Algae!

Pinophyta or Coniferophyta (conifers): pines, firs, spruces, sequoias, cedars, junipers, larches, cypresses, kauri, yews — if it has cones and needles rather than leaves and fruit, it’s probably a conifer! (Other gymnosperms — plants that bear seeds but not fruit — are the cycads, the ginkgo-like plants, and the gnetophytes.) Most are trees, but some are shrubs; conifers are especially prominent in boreal forests near the Arctic Circle, which store 1/3 of Earth's terrestrial carbon.

Chlorophyta (big category of green algae less closely related to land plants): I wasn't sure I was going to have anything interesting to say about these guys, but I was so wrong! With over 4,000 known species, chlorophytes are extremely diverse. Most live in fresh water, but some live in the ocean or on land. Some live in extreme environments, like deep sea hydrothermal vents, hypersaline lakes, deserts, and the arctic. Some have mutualistic relationships with animals like mollusks or sponges or cnidarians, and others have mutualistic relationships with fungi, forming lichen. While plants are known for being autotrophs (creating their own food), some chlorophytes are heterotrophs -- they get their nutrition from other organisms, either as parasites or otherwise. Some are pathogens.