AGAIN: THE GROWTH HABIT OF THE EARLY ANGIOSPERMS

Abstract

The question of the putative growth habit of early angiospermous plants, recently brought to the fore again by Stebbins (1965), is not a simple problem, it being complicated by, e.g., the alternative hypotheses of a single or a multiple descent of the Flowering Plants. A reconsideration based upon palaeobotanic, comparative morphological, and other evidence reveals that, in contradistinction to current views, the probable growth habit of pre- and proto-angiosperms was not of a single (uniform) type, but varied and included nearly all types exhibited by the various, recent dicotyledonous and monocotyledonous groups except the truly therophytic life form. Among the arborescent life forms represented at an early stage, the lofty dicotyledonous tree habit, though presumably present, was comparatively rare.