What is Plant Taxonomy?

The term “taxonomy” originates from two words, “taxis” meaning arrangement

and “nomos” meaning laws. Plant taxonomy deals with the classification of plants according to
certain set rules. The term taxonomy was coined by the Swiss botanist A. P. de Candolle in his
book “Théorie élémentaire de la botanique”.
Plant taxonomy can be defined as the branch of botany which deals with characterisation,
identification, classification and nomenclature of plants based on their similarities and
differences.
The goals of plant taxonomy are:

1. Identification: identify the unknown species based on its characteristics and by

comparing with already existing species
2. Characterisation: to describe all the characteristics of the newly identified species
3. Classification: placing and arranging the known species into different groups or taxa
according to similarities and dissimilarities
4. Nomenclature: giving the scientific name according to the convention

Taxonomy and Systematics

The word systematics comes from the word ‘systema’, meaning the systematic arrangement of
the organisms. It takes into consideration the evolutionary relationship of the organisms. Plant
systematics deals with interrelation between plants and their evolutionary descent. Systematics
studies biological diversity and organises the information into a classification.
Organisms are classified on the basis of similarities, closeness or relationship between them. It
shows the phylogenetic relationship between different organisms and shows their line of descent.
The similarities among individuals show that they might have developed from the common
ancestor. It shows the evolutionary pathway of modern living organisms. Closely related
organisms are included in a group, which share a common gene pool.
Organisms are categorised into different taxonomic categories according to the similarities and
specific features. The different taxonomic categories in their hierarchical order are:

 Kingdom
 Phylum
 Class
 Order
 Family
 Genus
 Species
The number of common characteristics decreases as we move from species to the kingdom,
where species having fundamental similarities and organisms in the same kingdom having least
common features.

List of Systems of Plant Taxonomy

The earliest system of classification considered only a few vegetative characters. Modern
taxonomic studies have been more elaborate and taken into consideration various morphological,
cellular and molecular characteristics, e.g. cellular and reproductive features, mode of nutrition,
habitat, evolutionary relationships, etc. along with morphological features.
There are three main types of systems for plant classification. Here is the list of systems of plant
taxonomy:

1. Artificial systems
2. Natural systems
3. Phylogenetic systems

 
1. Artificial systems: Artificial systems were the earliest systems, which attempted to classify
organisms based on a few superficial characters.
These were important in the history of biological classification as this was a novel attempt to
organise living organisms. The demerit was that it didn’t consider morphological details and the
evolutionary relationship. They gave equal importance to vegetative and sexual characters but it
is not true. Vegetative characters are greatly influenced by the environment. As a result, the
closely related species were kept apart.
Aristotle classified plants more than 2000 years ago on the basis of simple morphological
characters into herb, shrub and trees.
Theophrastus in his book “Historia Plantarum or Enquiry into plants” attempted to arrange
plants in various groups based on how plants reproduce and its uses. He is called “Father of
Botany”.
Carl Linnaeus is known as the “Father of Modern Taxonomy”. In his book “Systema
Naturae” (1735), he gave the hierarchical system of classification of the natural world into the
plant kingdom, the animal kingdom and mineral kingdom.
He understood the importance of floral characters and classified plants based on the number of
stamens present in them. It is also known as the sexual system of classification.
Linnaeus kept on adding new work to his publications. In “Species Plantarum” (1753), he gave
a brief description of all the species known to him. He described around 7,300 plant species in it.
He divided the plant kingdom into 24 classes based on the structure, union, length and the
number of stamens. E.g. Monoandria (1 stamen), Diandria (2 stamens), Polyandria (more than 12
stamens), Monoadelphia (stamens united in a single bundle), Monoecia, Dioecia, Polygamia
(polygamous plants), Cryptogamia (flowerless plants), etc.
He gave the Binomial nomenclature system. In “Philosophia Botanica”, he had given rules
for naming every species. It is called binomial because each name has two components, genus
name and species name, e.g. Solanum melongena (brinjal), Solanum tuberosum (potato) having
the same genus but different species name.
2. Natural systems: In this system of classification, more characters were considered while
classifying. It was based on the natural similarities of vegetative and floral characters among the
organisms. It took into consideration various external and internal features like the anatomy of a
cell, types of embryo and phytochemistry.
Bentham and Hooker proposed the most important natural system of classification of flowering
plants. They classified plants into Cryptogams (non-flowering plants)
and Phanerogams (flowering plants).

 
It helped to determine relationships between the various groups of plants but failed to identify
phylogenetic relationships among different groups of plants. It wrongly placed gymnosperms
between monocotyledons and dicotyledons.
3. Phylogenetic systems: This system is based on evolutionary sequence and genetic
relationship. This system was developed after the publication of Darwin’s theory of evolution.
Apart from the morphological characteristics found from fossil records, genetic constituents were
also considered. It has been widely accepted by biologists all over the world. According to this
system, all the organisms belonging to the same taxa originated from the common ancestor.

 
Various scientists namely Engler and Prantl, Hutchinson, Takhtajan, Cronquist, Rolf Dahlgren
and Robert F Thorne contributed to the phylogenetic system of classification.
The two main phylogenetic systems of classification are:

 Engler and Prantl system of classification: In this type of system floral characters like
single whorl or no perianth, unisexual flowers pollinated by wind were considered
primitive characters as compared to two whorls in the perianth and bisexual flowers
pollinated by insects. They arranged plants based on the increasing complexity of the
flower morphology.
 

 The plant kingdom was divided into 13 divisions:

o 11 are Thallophytes
o 12th Embryophyta Asiphonogama, i.e. plants having embryos but pollen tubes
are absent (bryophytes and pteridophytes)
o 13th Embryophyta Siphonogama, i.e. plants with embryo and pollen tubes (seed
plants)
 

 Hutchinson’s classification: Hutchinson classified angiosperms into monocotyledons

and dicotyledons.

o Dicotyledons were further divided into two divisions, namely, Lignosae (woody
plants) and Herbaoae (herbaceous plants)
 o Monocots were divided into 3 divisions on the basis of flower morphology,
namely, Calyciflerae (calyx present), Corolliferae (petaloid perianth) and
Glumiflorae (perianth absent)

 
Modern Taxonomic advancements:
With the advent of molecular biology, many techniques to identify genetic materials have been
developed. This has equipped us to compare individuals at different taxonomic levels and resolve
the difficulties of classifying them even if there is no fossil evidence.

1. Numerical taxonomy: It is done by using computers and all the observable characters
are taken into consideration. Each character is assigned with a code and a number.
Hundreds of characters can be considered together and given equal importance.
2. Cytotaxonomy: it utilises cytological information like chromosome number, shape size,
etc. to understand the taxonomy.
3. Chemotaxonomy: Use of chemical constituents of plants for taxonomic studies is known
as chemotaxonomy. Proteins, amino acids, nucleic acids and peptides, starch grains, wax,
fat, oil, phenols are studied in chemotaxonomy.

Importance of Plant Taxonomy

 It gives a detailed overview of various morphological and anatomical structures of a plant
species
 It organises all the information of plants into an orderly fashion
 It indicates the phylogenetic relationship between species and its ancestry
 Plant taxonomy enables to identify any unknown species and its place in the
classification by comparing with known species
 Analysis of genetic constituents can be done on the basis of systematics
 It is used to scientifically name any species, which helps in the uniformity of the name
around the world and avoids confusion
 It helps to understand the biodiversity present at a place
 It helps in recording all the living species known until now
 Taxonomy is widely used in agriculture, medicine and forestry