monocot-dicot distinction

[Finn N. Rasmussen]

Philip Cantino wrote:

<snip>If someone can demonstrate that the monocot-dicot distinction has more
phenetic support than any other way one could divide the angiosperms into
two groups, then I will concede that this distinction is not merely a matter
of tradition <endsnip>

I wonder if not the sympetalae-choripetalae distinction has just as much or
even more phenetic support than the monocot-dicot distinction. Of course,
there are examples of sympetalous choripets (including ´monocots´, which
could be relegated to a subgroup of choripetalae), but there are also dicots
with a deviating number of cotyledons, and about one third of the monocots
have no cotyledons at all. Sympetalae (syn. Tubiflorae, Asteridae s.l.,
'asterids') is a larger group than monocots, so a bipartition of the
angiosperms into sympets-choripets would be less skew than monocots-dicots.
The Umbelliferae and Cornales, which seem to be basal branches of the
Asterid clade, can be referred to as "choripetaloid sympets" just as the
"dicotyledonous paleoherbs".

The point is that the moncot-dicot bipartition probably is nothing more than
a tradition. I think it was introduced by John Ray as a subdivision of his
primary division between woody and herbaceous plants. It was not recognized
by Linnaeus.

Finn N. Rasmussen, Copenhagen