Contrastingly, eudicots have tricolpate pollen (or derived forms): grains with three or more pores set in furrows called colpi.

Many early-diverging dicot groups have monocot characteristics such as scattered vascular bundles, trimerous flowers, and non-tricolpate pollen.

[5] The consensus phylogenetic tree used in the APG IV system shows that the group traditionally treated as the dicots is paraphyletic to the monocots:[6][7] Amborellales Nymphaeales Austrobaileyales Chloranthales magnoliids Ceratophyllales eudicots monocots Traditionally, the dicots have been called the Dicotyledones (or Dicotyledoneae), at any rank.

The remaining dicots (palaeodicots or basal angiosperms) may be kept in a single paraphyletic class, called Magnoliopsida, or further divided.

Some botanists prefer to retain the dicotyledons as a valid class, arguing its practicality and that it makes evolutionary sense.