Gynomonoecy is defined as the presence of both

female Female (Venus symbol, symbol: ♀) is the sex of an organism that produces the large non-motile ovum, ova (egg cells), the type of gamete (sex cell) that fuses with the Sperm, male gamete during sexual reproduction. A female has larger gamet ...

and

hermaphrodite In reproductive biology, a hermaphrodite () is an organism that has both kinds of reproductive organs and can produce both gametes associated with male and female sexes. Many Taxonomy (biology), taxonomic groups of animals (mostly invertebrate ...

flowers on the same individual of a plant species. It is prevalent in

Asteraceae The family Asteraceae, alternatively Compositae, consists of over 32,000 known species of flowering plants in over 1,900 genera within the order Asterales. Commonly referred to as the aster, daisy, composite, or sunflower family, Compositae w ...

but is poorly understood. It is a monomorphic

sexual system A sexual system is a pattern of sex allocation or a distribution of male and female function across organisms in a species. Terms like reproductive system and mating system have also been used as synonyms. The distinction between sexual systems ...

alongside

monoecy Monoecy (; adj. monoecious ) is a sexual system in seed plants where separate male and female cones or flowers are present on the same plant. It is a monomorphic sexual system alongside gynomonoecy, andromonoecy and trimonoecy. Monoecy is conne ...

andromonoecy Andromonoecy is a breeding system of plant species in which male and hermaphrodite flowers are on the same plant. It is a monomorphic sexual system alongside monoecy, gynomonoecy and trimonoecy. Andromonoecy is frequent among genera with zygomorp ...

and

trimonoecy Trimonoecy, also called polygamomonoecious, is when male, female, and hermaphrodite flowers are on the same plant. Trimonoecy is rare. It is a monomorphic sexual system along with monoecy, gynomonoecy, and andromonoecy. It is hypothesized that t ...

Occurrence

This sexual system occurs in about 2.8% of flowering plants. It is present in 3% of ''

Silene ''Silene'' is a genus of flowering plants in the family Caryophyllaceae. Containing nearly 900 species, it is the largest genus in the family. Common names include campion and catchfly. Many ''Silene'' species are widely distributed, particularl ...

'' species and 23 families of flowering plants, but is most common in the daisy family,

. About 200 of the approximately 23000 species in the Asteraceae are gynomonoecious.

Evolution

Gynomonoecy may be an intermediate evolutionary state between

and hermaphroditism. It is also hypothesized to be the ancestor to

. Gynomonecy evolved once in

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

an ''

Tetramolopium ''Tetramolopium'' is a genus of plants in the tribe Astereae within the family Asteraceae. Most of the species are native to New Guinea, 11 species are found in Hawaii, and one in the Cook Islands, with the island populations apparently represen ...

''. In families like

Compositae The family Asteraceae, alternatively Compositae, consists of over 32,000 known species of flowering plants in over 1,900 genera within the order Asterales. Commonly referred to as the aster, daisy, composite, or sunflower family, Compositae w ...

Chenopodiaceae Amaranthaceae is a family of flowering plants commonly known as the amaranth family, in reference to its type genus ''Amaranthus''. It includes the former goosefoot family Chenopodiaceae and contains about 165 genera and 2,040 species, making it ...

, gynomonoecy is considered leading path to monoecy from hermaphroditism and vice versa.

References

Plant reproduction Sexual system {{botany-stub