Magnoliids

Magnoliids (or Magnoliidae or Magnolianae) are a group of flowering plants.^[1] They are descendants of the earliest flowering plants: they keep some features which look like those of conifers.^[2]

Magnoliids
Flower of Asimina triloba
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
(unranked):	Angiosperms
(unranked):	Magnoliids
Orders
Canellales Laurales Magnoliales Piperales

The group include magnolias, nutmeg, bay laurel, cinnamon, avocado, black pepper, tulip tree (Lyriodendron) and many others. They have three-part flowers, pollen with one pore, and usually branching-veined leaves.

The magnoliids are today more than 10,000 species of flowering plants. They are successful despite being "primitive" in structure.

The group has many food crops (such as avocados) and many with psychotropic effects. The famous Polynesian drink kava is prepared from a magnoliad, and nutmeg fruits are a source of the hallucinogen myristicin. Psychotropic effects are usually a defence against herbivory.

References

1. Palmer, Jeffrey D.; Soltis, Douglas E.; Chase, Mark W. (2004). "The plant tree of life: an overview and some points of view". American Journal of Botany. 91 (10): 1437–1445 (Fig.2). doi:10.3732/ajb.91.10.1437. PMID 21652302.
2. Angiosperm Phylogeny Group 2009. An update of the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group classification for the orders and families of flowering plants: APG III. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society. 161 (2): 105–121.