Monocots

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This entry is about the name monocots (sensu APG II). For information about the plants see monocotyledon.

In plant taxonomy the name monocots (plural, not capitalised) applies to a clade within the angiosperms. It is thus used by the APG and APG II systems, which are probably the systems that are most widely accepted.

The taxa belonging to this clade of monocots are those plants known as "monocots" or "monocotyledons". This group has been given various names (each with their own internal taxononomy. Historically, the monocotyledons were named:

Monocotyledoneae in the de Candolle system and the Engler system.
Monocotyledones in the Bentham & Hooker system and the Wettstein system
class Liliopsida in the Cronquist system; also the Takhtajan and the Reveal systems.
subclass Liliidae in the Dahlgren system and the Thorne system (1992).
clade monocots in the APG and the APG II system.

Within the monocots, the APG II system recognizes ten orders of monocots and two families not yet assigned to any order. A number of these are recognised as the clade "commelinids", the rest (a paraphyletic unit) is occasionally referred to as the "base monocots".