@stevegis_ssg @catsalad
5/
Nature doesn't care about our neat, tidy human labels. If a body plan works—like growing a massive wooden trunk to out-compete your neighbors for sunlight—completely different species will keep reinventing that exact same shape over and over again.

#Nature
#trees
#photography
#oak
#AltText

@stevegis_ssg @catsalad
3/
Genetically and structurally, an oak tree and a daisy are practically siblings. They both produce flowers, they both package their seeds inside fruits or protective casings, and their internal fluid-transport networks are built the exact same way. A pine tree is like a distant cousin from a completely different era that just happens to wear the same tall, woody outfit.

#trees
#flowers
#plants
#biology

@stevegis_ssg @catsalad

2. The Oak, the Daisy, and the Pine

Because oaks and daisies are both flowering plants (angiosperms), they share a much more recent common ancestor with each other than either of them does with a pine tree.

#angiosperms
#trees
#flowers
#plants
#evolution

@stevegis_ssg @catsalad

In the language of evolutionary biology, "tree" is not a taxonomic clade (a group sharing a single common ancestor). It is a strategy. It is a plant life-form, or a specialized "body plan," that a massive variety of completely unrelated plants independently figured out over hundreds of millions of years because growing tall, woody, and chasing the sunlight is an incredibly successful way to survive.

#trees
#taxonomy
#biology