I know that many plant families have recognizable characteristics, and a recommended way to learn botany is to become familiar with these families before moving into genera. I'm curious why I haven't seen this advice applied at the order level before. Are orders too high-level to have a concise list of recognizable characteristics most of the time? Are there too few orders for them to be useful, but few enough families to make learning them within reach? Are there any resources that list the characteristics of the orders similar to what Elpel's "Botany in a Day" does for families?
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4$\begingroup$ I wish I had previously known about 'Botany in a Day' - sounds very helpful! A short (and unsatisfying) answer would be that yes, there tend to be shared features between members of a given order, but I am not sure whether they are universally helpful, reliable or recognisable (e.g. Asterales are supposed to share a common stamen morphology...). $\endgroup$– stellariaCommented Aug 3 at 22:20
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Orders are, like you say, too high-level for this - the Caryophyllales for example, the order that contains the familiar pinks and carnations grown in gardens also contains cacti, tropical pitcher plants, beetroot, Lithops, plumbago and amaranth - all of which at first glance seem to be completely unrelated.
