Author Archive for: Daniel Fuller

The Asteracaea family, also known colloquially as the asters, is a great dicot plant family to learn early on in your plant identification journey because their flowers are very interesting. The family includes genera (plural of genus) such as daisies, sunflowers, thistles and dandelions, which have members everywhere. A disproportionate number of the weeds we fight against are from the aster family.

The brassica family, also known as the mustard or cruciferous family, is an economically important group of dicotyledonous plants that probably makes up a part of your everyday diet. Family members are generally small herbaceous plants but there are some shrubby varieties and even a few vines as well. Description Bisexual, radially symmetrical flowers are often bright yellow, though they’re

The rose family is a family of flowering dicots that are considered to be one of the most important plant families economically speaking. Under its umbrella are examples such as apples, pears, plums, cherries, almonds, strawberries, blackberries, and of course roses. Description Family members vary in size from tiny wildflowers to large fruit trees. They’re often woody with a few

The myrtle family are a dicotoledenous group with members found across the world, with some noteworthy Aussie varieties. Description They are known for shedding bark, which may or may not be peeling off the stems depending on the species and time of year. This can be normal for these plants as long as it is natural and not mechanical (physical)

Eucalypts are plants within 7 genera of the myrtle family Myrtaceae that share a number of characteristics, and are native to Australia and a select few other nearby countries and islands. They produce the medicinal eucalyptus oil which is anti biotic and anti viral medicine for external use, as well as being a nasal decongestant. Nothing says “Australia” quite like a

Bottle brushes are in the Myrtaceae family along with eucalypts and lilly pillies. It’s contended whether or not Callistemon group is worthy of being described as a separate genus from the Melaluca group due to the fact that they are very similar. Because of this, they’ve been combined into a single post here. These plants are full of camphoraceous essetial oils and are responsible

Citrus plants belong to a single genus native to Southeast Asia, Australia and Melanesia within the dicotyledonous Rutaceae family.

These plants are known as being easily hybridisable, hence a lot of varieties are hybrids of multiple species.

Description

Plants within this genus generally have the habit of a shrub or tree.

Palms are a family consisting of evergreen monocotyledonous trees, shrubs and climbers with characteristic compound leaves known as fronds. Even though they do not resemble other trees in the dicot and gymnosperm classes in the way those plants display true secondary (lateral) growth, palms sometimes display “anomalous secondary growth” where individual cells enlarge to thicken the trunk without a vascular

There are few flowers that inspire the type of awe that orchids do. They come in some seriously weird and wacky forms and I’m not quite sure there’s such a thing as an ordinary orchid, unless you’re comparing it against other orchids. All orchids belong to a single family of monocots, Orchidaceae. You might find members growing in the soil or

Probably the most famous desert-dwelling plant family, the cacti family are a group of dicots native to the Americas. There are 127 genera in this clade with 1750 known species in total. When we look at a cactus, it can be hard to decide which part is the leaf and which is the stem. Cactaceae plants have evolved to change