home   Printer friendly version Add to site
Advanced search
Time & Space Fossil Gallery Famous Flora & Fauna
Careers Resources K-12 Collections PaleoPeople

Dicots

See More Images
(27 total)

Platanus
Platanus
© 2003 University of California Museum of Paleontology

Quercus
Quercus
© 2003 P.J. Noble, University of Nevada, Reno

Tapirira
Tapirira
© 2009 Ana Luisa Carreno

What are Dicots? Dicots comprise more than half of all the living flowering plants, including economically important plants like coffee, potatoes, and olives, as well as large trees like oaks and maples. They also include cacti and most of the large, showy flowers you may see in a flower shop. Dicots get their name from having two cotyledons, or “seed leaves,” which transport nutrients from the seed to the developing embryo. Dicots are most easily recognized by the net-like or branching arrangement of veins in their leaves. The fossil record of dicots is a little more complete than for the monocots, and it extends back to the Middle Cretaceous.

First known fossil occurrence: Cretaceous.

Last known fossil occurrence: Quaternary. This group has living relatives.

Cool Dicots links:

Search for images of Dicots on Google

See Dicots from the:

Quaternary
Tertiary
Cretaceous
Jurassic
Triassic
Permian
Carboniferous
Devonian
Silurian
Ordovician
Cambrian
Precambrian
help