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Chapter 1 Introduction

Systematic botany is the science of identifying, naming and classifying all plants. It involves organizing the diversity of plants through activities like collecting plant specimens and producing classifications. The goals are to inventory the world's plant species, provide identification methods, demonstrate plant evolution, and apply single scientific names. Approaches include classical taxonomy using specimens, biosystematics combining field and lab research, numerical taxonomy using computer analysis, and chemosystematics analyzing chemical features. Accurately naming plants allows communication about their total biology and characteristics shared with similar species.

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78 views10 pages

Chapter 1 Introduction

Systematic botany is the science of identifying, naming and classifying all plants. It involves organizing the diversity of plants through activities like collecting plant specimens and producing classifications. The goals are to inventory the world's plant species, provide identification methods, demonstrate plant evolution, and apply single scientific names. Approaches include classical taxonomy using specimens, biosystematics combining field and lab research, numerical taxonomy using computer analysis, and chemosystematics analyzing chemical features. Accurately naming plants allows communication about their total biology and characteristics shared with similar species.

Uploaded by

sitalcoolk
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Introduction to Systematic

Botany

Systematic Botany Chapter 1


Systematic Botany
 the science of identifying, naming and
classifying all plants
 the early recognition of useful and harmful
plants marked the beginning of systematic
botany
 includes all activities that are part of the
effort to organize and record the diversity
of plants and acquaints us with the
fascinating differences among the species
of plants
Objectives
1. To inventory the world’s flora
2. To provide a method for identification
and communication
3. To produce a coherent and universal
system of classification
4. To demonstrate the evolutionary
implications of plant diversity
5. To provide a single Latin “scientific”
name for every group of plants in the
world, both extant and fossil
Approaches in Systematics
 Classical Taxonomy
 consists largely of museum research but often
includes field work
 Biosystematics
 involves ecological, cytological, and genetic
investigations, and experimental studies of living
populations in the field, experimental garden,
laboratory, and greenhouse
 Numerical Taxonomy
 treatment of various types of taxonomic data by
computerized methods
 Chemosystematics
 also called chemical taxonomy or chemotaxonomy
 use of chemical features of plants in developing
classification
Definitions
 Taxonomy
 study of classification
 Classification
 arrangement of plants into groups having common
characteristics
 results in the placing of plants into a hierarchy of
ranks or categories such as species, genera,
families, and so on
 Identification
 recognition of certain characters of flower, fruit,
leaf or stem and the application of a name of a
plant with those particular characters
Definitions
 Nomenclature
 concerned with the orderly application of names to
taxa in accordance with the International Code of
Botanical Nomenclature (ICBN)
 Taxon (taxa)
 a convenient and useful term applied to any
taxonomic group at any rank
 separated from one another and are recognized by
the features unique to each taxon
 examples: species, genus, family
Definitions
 Description
 a listing of its features or morphological
characteristics referred to as taxonomic characters
 Flora
 refers either to the plants growing in an area
surrounded by a geographic or political boundary
or to an inventory of the plants of a particular area
or region
 Manual
 a book that provides an inventory of the flora and
the means of identifying the plants using
descriptive keys
Need for Names
 A plant’s name is the key that unlocks the
door to its total biology
 The scientific name of a plant
communicates the species and genus, and
from that the family may be easily
determined
 To characterize other individual plants that
share certain of the same features of the
observed plant
 Users of information: biologists, ecologists,
agriculturists, and general public
Phases of Plant Systematics
1. Exploration and discovery
 also called alpha taxonomy
 provide an inventory of the plants of the world
 Herbarium – collections of pressed and dried
specimen
2. Synthesis
 accumulation of adequate herbarium material
for a given geographic or political region
3. Experimental Phase
 combining of data for interpretation in
evolutionary or phylogenetic terms
Critical Problems and Opportunities
 Systematics is a fundamental prerequisite
for many biological investigations
 Important in ecology, plant exploration and
comparative biochemistry
 There is an urgent need to study the flora
of some area because of rapid destruction
of vegetation, agricultural practices,
encroaching civilization, pollution, and
extinction
 Potential economic, medical uses of plants

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