XVI International Botanical Congess

While basic trends in angiosperm floral morphology are recognized, little work has been done to quantify the relative importance of these trends. Here, a database of floral characters is used to summarize the distribution and disparity of floral morphologies as a whole. The data set contains the number and arrangement of floral organs from over 500 species, representing about 200 families, and has been analyzed using multivariate techniques. Results show that the organization of carpels and floral symmetry are important structuring factors in the data. Both stamen and carpel numbers demonstrate significant variation from base numbers but do not appear to be linked. Changes in stamen number from base morphology occur primarily via dedoublement with spiral initiation and the addition of whorls contributing considerably less to overall morphological variation.