A major group of flowering plants characterized by two cotyledons and distinctive tricolpate pollen (with three furrows or pores), representing about 75% of all flowering plant species. Eudicots include most familiar trees, shrubs, and many herbaceous plants like roses, beans, and sunflowers.
From Greek 'eu' meaning true or good, plus 'dicotyledon', literally meaning 'true two-cotyledon plants'. The term was coined in the 1990s when molecular phylogenetic studies revealed that traditional dicots were not monophyletic, requiring a new classification for the core group.
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