Gnetales (Noun)
Meaning
Chiefly tropical or xerophytic woody plants; practically unknown as fossils but considered close to the ancestral line of angiosperms.
Classification
Nouns denoting plants.
Examples
- Gnetales are an enigmatic group of seed plants that are thought to be among the most primitive living relatives of angiosperms.
- The order Gnetales consists of just three families of plants, including the cycadeoid Ephedra and the conelike Welwitschia.
- As one of the least-known plant groups, Gnetales have long fascinated botanists due to their unique characteristics and potential link to angiosperm evolution.
- Recent phylogenetic analyses suggest that Gnetales may have diverged from the angiosperm lineage over 300 million years ago.
- Some researchers propose that Gnetales could be close to the common ancestor that gave rise to the incredibly diverse angiosperms we see today.