No such thing as a tree really (genetically speaking), trees are just a bunch of plants that converged on a similar niche but they don’t all share a common ancestor (some trees are more closely related to brocoli than other trees), lots of different things evolved into what we now call trees seperately from eachother so a bannana tree is as much a tree as any other tree.
That doesn’t mean there’s no such thing as trees though. It means a tree is a growth form, a life strategy, just like a succulent, a geofyte or an epifyte. It’s a group of plants that have a lot in common despite not being related, and they are well defined. And one of the important defining characteristics of a tree is true wood production, which is missing in bananas. The life form of a banana is much more similar to ginger than to any tree.
The same goes for everything that lives then. There is no such thing as a mammal, they are just a form of prototheria! A lot of them just evolved into what we consider marsupials or eutheria. But a koala is just as much a mammal as a lemur!
Now this is a much smaller branch ofc, but you could slap it onto anything more vague. Reptiles, fish, crabs… and worse… fungi. Not to mention the archea.
No such thing as a tree really (genetically speaking), trees are just a bunch of plants that converged on a similar niche but they don’t all share a common ancestor (some trees are more closely related to brocoli than other trees), lots of different things evolved into what we now call trees seperately from eachother so a bannana tree is as much a tree as any other tree.
That doesn’t mean there’s no such thing as trees though. It means a tree is a growth form, a life strategy, just like a succulent, a geofyte or an epifyte. It’s a group of plants that have a lot in common despite not being related, and they are well defined. And one of the important defining characteristics of a tree is true wood production, which is missing in bananas. The life form of a banana is much more similar to ginger than to any tree.
Bananas are all bite and no bark.
This is unreasonably genius even for your high standard
And as always I enjoyed learning something new from your. Some of these classifications are nuts.
No such thing as a fish
So trees are the flora equivalent of crabs is what you’re saying.
The same goes for everything that lives then. There is no such thing as a mammal, they are just a form of prototheria! A lot of them just evolved into what we consider marsupials or eutheria. But a koala is just as much a mammal as a lemur!
Now this is a much smaller branch ofc, but you could slap it onto anything more vague. Reptiles, fish, crabs… and worse… fungi. Not to mention the archea.