What the hell is an Angiosperm?

Basically I am a plant geek so I thought it was humorous to call my blog Dances with Angiosperms. Yeah, I am weird. And no, I have no resemblance to Kevin Costner either.

But since I work with plants and specifically with angiosperms it does have some relevance to my life.

Definition (from Encyclopedia Brittanica):

"Angiosperm, any member of the more than 300,000 species of flowering plants (division Anthophyta), the largest and most diverse group within the kingdom Plantae. Angiosperms represent approximately 80 percent of all the known green plants now living. The angiosperms are vascular seed plants in which the ovule (egg) is fertilized and develops into a seed in an enclosed hollow ovary. The ovary itself is usually enclosed in a flower, that part of the angiospermous plant that contains the male or female reproductive organs or both. Fruits are derived from the maturing floral organs of the angiospermous plant and are therefore characteristic of angiosperms."


It is part of a taxonomic classification system to help us put Nature into some kind of order. Apparently humans need to do this sort of thing.

The first evidence of angiosperms (dated from fossils) is from the Jurassic period, approximately 150 million years ago. But they did not really take off until about 100 million years ago when there was "The Great Angiosperm Radiation". I prefer to call it "World Domination by Angiosperms" and to this day they remain the predominant group of plants and can be found on every continent.