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Floral Symmetry Groups
If we consider only those flowers which consist in a single flower, rather than a flower head or inflorescence, we can group the flowers into a relatively small number of 2D symmetry groups. Monocots are identifiable by their trimerous petals, thus monocots often have rotational symmetry of order 3. If the flower also has 3 lines of mirror symmetry the group it belongs to is the dihedral group D3. If not, then it belongs to the cyclic group C3. Eudicots with tetramerous or pentamerous petals may have rotational symmetry of order 4 or 5. Again, whether they also have mirror planes decides whether they belong to dihedral (D4 and D5) or cyclic groups (C4 or C5). The sepals of some monocot flowers develop to replicate the petals, thus, superficially, certain monocots can appear to have rotational symmetry of order 6 and belong to either symmetry group D6 or C6. It must be remembered however, that flower symmetry is rarely perfect in the way that geometric symmetry is. The general layout of a flower belongs to the above symmetry groups, but an individual flower will not show exact symmetry.