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What's Our Scope?
What's Our Scope?
Land Plants
Seaweed
Mushrooms
Slime Mold
In scope: macroscopic, extant, planty
In scope: macroscopic, extant, planty
Out of scope: microscopic or extinct
Out of scope: microscopic or extinct
As with many taxonomic classifications, the Kingdom Plantae has meant different things over it's history, and differing definitions still exist. In general, Plantae includes plants. However, there are some plant like things... Mushrooms, Slime molds, and some kinds of aquatic plants are often or always excluded. Our scope mostly falls within this kingdom, so we'll use it as our overarching scope - but we'll adjust it a bit: Plantae ... plus plant like things.
macroscopic and extant species included in
Kingdom Plantae (the vast majority of our scope)
Kingdom Fungi (where we find mushrooms)
Kingdom Chromista (where we find brown algae)
Kingdom Protozoa (where we find slime mold)
Land Plants
Land Plants
There are two kinda land plants
There are two kinda land plants
In the old days (well, actually, still today), most plant identification is done by keys. Keys are branching decision trees that place plants into groups that get smaller and smaller with each decision. While we're trying to figure out how to make it a bit less analog, it does help us to make a few decision tree designations. These will be: Non Vascular or Vascular? Spores or seeds? Cones or flowers? Monocot or dicot?
To start learning or identifying land plants, go here:
Seaweed (algae)
Seaweed (algae)
Seaweeds live totally or partially submerged in seawater. (No freshies allowed.)
There are three kinds of seaweed:
brown (Phaeophyta)
red (Rhodophyta)
green (Chlorophyta - specifically, the class Ulvophyceae)
Freshwater aquatic plants get more complicated - but we'll treat them all in the "land plants" group, which we admit is kind of a stretch for Phylum Charophyta, class Charophyceae.
However, since most other groups of true freshwater algae are either unicellular, or colonies of cells that form filaments, discs, webs, or mats that could be quite kindly called "scum," it works for me to discuss these with the aquatic land plants.
Fungi
Fungi
Technically this Kingdom includes yeasts, molds, and mushrooms, but we'll mostly be concerned with the latter. Primarily: Kingdom Fungi, Phylum Basidiomycota, Class Agaricomycetes.
Mushrooms are actually the fruiting body of a larger organism. The persistent part of the plant (the mycelium) is often thready, spreading, and microscopic. That said, a single organism can form a massive network over thousands of square kilometers, weigh thousands of kilograms, and persist for more than a thousand years.
Slime Molds
Slime Molds
A super cool category of not quite plant, not quite animal, all weird and interesting. Slime molds may be amorphous blobs, webby film, fuzzy, frothy, or slimy. Check out google images for a trippy dip into the possibilities.
All art credits on this page go to the open-source images from the Biodiversity Heritage Library.
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