Also called the Angiosperms, the Magnoliophyta are the flowering plants. This group is the most diverse, ecologically dominant and economically important of all the living plant phyla. Although woody forms (trees and shrubs) are common in this group, herbaceous members are ubiquitous. The flowering plants are traditionally divided into two groups: Class Magnoliopsida (the "dicots") and Class Liliopsida (the "monocots"). There are many characteristics that distinguish these two groups but the two most important for field identification are the leaves and the flowers. The monocots tend to have parallel-veined leaves and their flower parts tend to occur in multiples of 3. The dicots have leaves with reticulate or net-like veins and tend to produce flower parts in multiples of 4 or 5.
*NOTE: Family placement  follows Radford, A.E., H.E. Ahles and C.R. Bell. 1968. Manual of the Vascular Flora of the Carolinas. The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill.
 

Class MAGNOLIOPSIDA	Class LILIOPSIDA
Dicots	Monocots

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