Dataset underlying the study "The relative and absolute frequencies of angiosperm sexual systems: dioecy, monoecy, gynodioecy, and an up-dated online database"

This list of genera with dioecious species was started in 1995 by going through Yampolsky, C., and H. Yampolsky. 1922. Distribution of sex forms in the phanerogamic flora. Bibliotheca Genetica 3: 1-62. The Y & Y data came from Engler and Prantl’s series “Natürliche Pflanzenfamilien” (up to 1912), with most sexual systems inferred only from herbarium material, not living populations. This led to the frequent use of the term polygamy, which refers to the presence of unisexual and bisexual flowers on some or all individuals. This term is useful when herbarium specimens reveal the presence of unisexual and bisexual flowers, but not their population-level distribution so that monoecy, dioecy, and gynodioecy cannot be reliably distinguished.

 Over the years, many experts reviewed data for specific clades, and I also added corrections received via email or that I picked up in the literature. Yampolsky and Yampolsky (1922) are referred to in the dataset as “Y 32”, where 32 is the the page number. Some other sources are cited at the end of this table as are the sources cited in this Introduction.

On 3 May 2014, the list included 987 angiosperm genera, representing 7% of the 13,479 genera accepted in 1995 (Brummitt et al., 1992) or 6.7% of the 14,559 genera accepted in the The Plant List (http://www.theplantlist.org/1.1/browse/A/#statistics vs. 1.1. of 13 Sep. 2013, accessed 12 Jan. 2014). The 987 genera represent at least 869 independent origins of dioecy because 10 families with >1 genus are entirely dioecious. The genera belong to 175 families (38%) out of the c. 450 families of angiosperms currently accepted.