[Sca-cooks] bananas are herbs?

[Terry Decker]

>>>Now _I'm_ confused. The rosemary bush out back (roughly the size and
shape
>>>of a 'horta') is pretty woody, especially the older it gets. But could
you
>>>explain 'gymnosperm' and 'angiosperm' for those non-botanists among us?
>>
>>angiosperm -- n. group of plants that produce seeds enclosed within an
>>ovary, which may mature into a fruit; flowering plants .
>>
>>gymnosperm -- n. A plant that produces seeds, which are not enclosed;
>>includes any seed plant that does not produce flowers.
>
>But rosemary is primarily started from a growth, not a seed.  I am not sure
>I have ever seen rosemary seeds.  I've certainly never seen seeds on the
>plants and the oldest rosemary hedge I have known was well over 20 years
>old!  It was indeed very woody at it's core branches.  The thing just sent
>out creepers and it kept sprawling until it was a hedge that went the
entire
>length of the yard.  Funny thing that.  When the owner of the house died,
>the rosemary did too, within weeks.
>Olwen

For angiosperm vs gymnosperm, it's flowering versus non-flowering.  Bananas
are angiosperms, but their propagation is by the shoots rather than the
seeds.  Gymnosperms, FWIW, are the older form being Permian in origin.

Bear