#plant bracket

For the Phylum Level Champion!

Reminder: This is the final PHYLUM round. Winner goes on to classes!

Magnoliophyta (aka angiosperms, flowering plants): A large, diverse phylum with over 300,000 known species. Two of the more well-known sub-divisions are monocots (including grains, onion-like plants, and irises and lilies) and eudicots (including most leafy trees, a wide variety of flowers such as sunflowers and roses, and many food plants from coffee to cabbages.)

Apples of Discord vs Sacred Lotus

Rosids: The romantic clade. Do you want not only a dozen roses, but also a nice glass of wine and some strawberries dipped in chocolate to go with them? Of course you do. Vote Rosids. (And yes, this is also the cannabis clade, so light up/grab your edibles.)

Basal Eudicots: Here be funky flowers: the sacred lotus, poppies, the king protea of South Africa and the waratah of Australia. Also, macademia nuts.

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme vs Bay Leaves and Black Pepper

Eudicots (“true dicots”): This is a ginormous class, containing almost all leafy trees, quite a lot of plants that humans get food from (including potatoes and all of the legumes), and the plants we get tea, coffee, and chocolate from. It also contains carnivorous plants, parasitic plants, and some very poisonous plants, as well as tobacco and cannabis.

Spiky vs Toxic

Asterids: Down to earth, practical, and here to mess you up. The clade of potatoes, olive oil, coffee, dandelions, tobacco, and poison hemlock. RIP Socrates.

Other Core Eudicots: An ornery bunch, here we’ve got carnivorous plants, cacti, spinach, currants, and…tumbleweed? Also sandlewood, because this paraphyletic group likes to smell nice when it goes into the ring.

🌻 vs 🪷

Basal Eudicots: Here be funky flowers: the sacred lotus, poppies, the king protea of South Africa and the waratah of Australia. Also, macademia nuts.

Asterids: Down to earth, practical, and here to mess you up. The clade of potatoes, olive oil, coffee, dandelions, tobacco, and poison hemlock. RIP Socrates.

Big Spiky Things vs Little Soft Things

Pinophyta (conifers) fun fact: Giant sequoias, Sequoiadendron giganteum, can grow over 300 feet tall, 30 feet in diameter, and live for over 3,000 years. They are the world's largest trees.

Grass (slang) vs Grass (literal)

Eudicots (“true dicots”): This is a ginormous class, containing almost all leafy trees, quite a lot of plants that humans get food from (including potatoes and all of the legumes), and the plants we get tea, coffee, and chocolate from. It also contains carnivorous plants, parasitic plants, and some very poisonous plants, as well as tobacco and cannabis.

Pine Trees vs A Different Type of Green Algae!

Pinophyta or Coniferophyta (conifers): pines, firs, spruces, sequoias, cedars, junipers, larches, cypresses, kauri, yews — if it has cones and needles rather than leaves and fruit, it’s probably a conifer! (Other gymnosperms — plants that bear seeds but not fruit — are the cycads, the ginkgo-like plants, and the gnetophytes.) Most are trees, but some are shrubs; conifers are especially prominent in boreal forests near the Arctic Circle, which store 1/3 of Earth's terrestrial carbon.