Gynomonoecy is defined as the presence of both

female An organism's sex is female ( symbol: ♀) if it produces the ovum (egg cell), the type of gamete (sex cell) that fuses with the male gamete (sperm cell) during sexual reproduction. A female has larger gametes than a male. Females and ...

and

hermaphrodite A hermaphrodite () is a sexually reproducing organism that produces both male and female gametes. Animal species in which individuals are either male or female are gonochoric, which is the opposite of hermaphroditic. The individuals of many ...

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

Asteraceae Asteraceae () is a large family (biology), family of flowering plants that consists of over 32,000 known species in over 1,900 genera within the Order (biology), order Asterales. The number of species in Asteraceae is rivaled only by the Orchi ...

but is poorly understood. It is a monomorphic

sexual system A sexual system is a distribution of male and female functions across organisms in a species. The terms reproductive system and mating system have also been used as synonyms. Sexual systems play a key role in genetic variation and reproductive ...

comparable with

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 comparable with gynomonoecy, andromonoecy and trimonoecy, and con ...

, andromonoecy and trimonoecy.

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,

. Of the approximately 23000 species in the Asteraceae about 200 are gynomonoecious.

Evolution

Gynomonoecy may be an intermediate evolutionary state between

and hermaphroditism. It is also postulated to be the ancestor to trimonoecy. Gynomonecy evolved once in

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

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 Asteraceae () is a large family of flowering plants that consists of over 32,000 known species in over 1,900 genera within the order Asterales. The number of species in Asteraceae is rivaled only by the Orchidaceae, and which is the larger fa ...

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

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

References

Plant reproduction Sexual system {{botany-stub