Magnoliopsida

Magnoliopsida is a traditional taxonomic rank for flowering plants, roughly corresponding to what has been called the dicotyledons. In many 20th-century systems, Magnoliopsida was the class that included the majority of angiosperms bearing two seed leaves and excluded monocots.

The group was highly diverse, spanning a wide range of life forms from herbs to shrubs and trees, and incorporating many familiar families such as Ranunculaceae, Rosaceae, Fabaceae, and Asteraceae. Typical dicots are characterized by two cotyledons, net-like leaf venation, and floral organs that are commonly arranged in parts of four or five, though there are numerous exceptions and variations across lineages.

With the shift to phylogenetic classification, the rank Magnoliopsida is not used as a formal clade in modern systems such as the APG framework. The plants formerly placed in Magnoliopsida are now distributed across several clades, with the majority aligned with the eudicots, a monophyletic group, while other lineages are recognized as basal angiosperms or magnoliids. As a result, Magnoliopsida remains mainly of historical interest, appearing in older literature and in some educational contexts rather than as an accepted contemporary taxonomic unit.