Professional Documents
Culture Documents
6.1
11.2
1.3
1.4
1.5
Introduction
Objectives
Need for classification
Aims, Objectives and Importance of Taxonomy
Principles of Taxonomy and Systematics
History of Plant Classification
The Ancient Greeks and Romans
The Herbals
The Transition Period
The Post-Herbal Period
1.6
1.7
6.8
1.9
1.10
Objectives
After reading this unit you will be able to:
define and differentiate between taxonomy and systematics,
@ describe various principles of taxonomy and systematics,
@ discuss aims, objectives and ia~portance
of taxonomy,
@ describe the history of plant apd animal taxonomy, with special emphasis on plant
taxonomy in ancient India.
First of all there is a need to know what classification is? Let us define in simple term.
Classification is placing of a plant (or groups of plants) O r IMIimd (or groups of
animals) in groups or categories according to a particular plan or sequence and in
conformity with a nomenclatural system. Every species is classified as a member of a
particular genus, the genus belongs to a family, family to an order, the order to a
ciass and so on (Fig. 1.1).
,Phylr~rnChordntn
Kingdom Animalia
/ ,Class Mammalia
Order Carnivora
- .
In practical terms classification deals more with the placing of a plant group with a
selected scheme than the placing of an individual plant ih one of several minor
categories. Thus a system of classification is necessary to allow us to identify plants
and animals and to communicate scientifically with others. Indeed, classification is
both an information storage and retrieval system without which scientific
communication would be impossible. For instance a plant's name is the key that
unlocks the door to its total biology. Ecologists, horticulturists, biochemists,
agriculturists and others must have a reference system for the plants, they use in their
research. However, the name of plant is not meant only for the scientist, it may be
used by other people with varied interests and training, those who are interested in
the natural history of plants. The scientific name of a plant communicates the species
and genus, and from that the family may be easily determined.
From the time immemorial plants have been known by some name, they are
common, vernacular or local names given by different persons. Thus a single plant
can bear several names, or several plants can be named by the same name at different
places. For example, Verbuscum has 140 narfies, Viola (pansy) has more than150
names, Plantago (plantain) has about 50 names. Some common names such as 'celaf.,
Foxtail, flame of the forest are being used for variety of plants markedly different
from each other. It is, therefore, apparent that in order to avoid cornsion some
general principles of universal acceptance had to be adopted. Thus professional
botanists gradually suggested names to all the known plants and classified them
tific way. The scientific names and crassification are published and remdn
uww- jn different languages and are quoted as such universally in botanicpl '
lite&turB
We will take an example and see how classification helps its user. For example, when
a forester identifies a white oak (Quercus alba), it can reasonably be assumed that
there are other individual white oaks in nature that have similar morphological
features, structure and physiology. The knowledge that a plant is Quercus alba
automatically predicts that much information will be applicable to that plant.
Cllassification thus enables us to sumarise our knowledge abut the organisms, and
that is one of the most important functions of taxonomy.
A tllird objective is the demonstration of tremendous diversity of the plant and animal
and its relation to man's understanding of evolution. An organised
recc~nstructionof the plant and animal kingdom as a whole can be made only after
the inventory of its components has been assembled. After assemblage, charting of
the degree and character of variation will demonstrate its diversity, and these data
can be integrated with other facets of evolutionary knowledge to produce a more
acclirate phylogenetic scheme.
W O I Id
1) The basic knowledge of plants provides idea about their morphological variation.
2) Hybridisation is possible without the knowledge of taxonomy.
[
[
3) Study of plant taxonomy also helps in conservation of soil and to decrkase soil
fertility.
[
1
4) Fragmentary and ill-preserved specimens sometimes helps in establishing
[
connecting links amongst various taxa.
*
6) One of the most extensive works of taxonomists was to provide a single Latin
scientific name.
C
c
PLANT
SYSTEMATICS
TAXONOMY
Herbarium collections
Description
Identificatioii
Nomenclature
Bibliography
Classification
Classification
I
We will now learn something mare about systematic botany. The early recognition
of harmful and useful plants was the beginning of systematic botany. When the
language was developed it was possible that observation of plants was accumulated
and this knowledge could be passed from one generation to the next. Today, the basic
recognition and grouping of plants has developed into a highly complex science
concerned with classifying plants into groups based on postulated evolutionary
relationships. Systematic botany includes all activities that are part of the effort to
organise and record the diversity of plants and acquaints us with the fascinating
differences among the species of plants. Thus systemalics provide an inventory of
plants or animals, scheme of identification, their names and a system of classification.
Systematics is basic to other scientific fields, but also it depends on other disciplines
for information and data useful in constructing classifications. A sound classification
bringing related organisms together, may suggest problerns worthy of study by
ecologists, plant breeders, pharmacologists, horticulturists and biochemists.
SAQ 2
Fill in the blanks with appropriate words:
.
......... of
Systematic botany is broad field concerned with the ....................
......., and ..................................
plants and their .......................
Classification is the arrangement of plants into groups having
.................................................................. groups are arranged into a
............................... and Similar plants are placed into a
................................ , similar genera into ................... ...........
Classification results into a hierarchy of .................................such as
................................., ................................... .................................and
SO on,
..
Now we will discuss the principles of taxonomy which enable us to classify the
diversity of organism in different groups.
The goal of taxonomy is to develop a workable classification that reflects
evolutionary relationships and provides identification and nomenclature.
a The selected character should be constant and must show little environmental
throughout their range and all taxa at lower ranks should be examined.
s Ancestral features and trends of diveFsity may often be recognised in the structure
of living organisms.
e Ancestral organisms should be given careful considerat~on.
e Evolution may result in reduction or loss of parts which should also be taken into
consideration.
s Morphological characters should be given proper importance because they provide
guidance to primitive versus advanced features and aid in developing phylogenetic
relationships. Thinking should be very flexible so that modifications in
classification may be made as soon as new evidence is available.
e In pheneiic taxonomy, taxa are organised and classified on the bases of similarities
of the phenotypes of the organism.
e The modern taxonomy includes cladistic taxonomy which involves summarising
knowledge about similarities among taxa in terms of a branching diagram called a
cladogram depicting the hypothetical evolutionary histories of the organisms.
e Biogeography is also an important part of taxonomy because it analyses the pattern
of distribution of organisms and relates these to the systematics of the organisms.
Classification thus enables us to summarise our knowledge about the organisms, and
that is one of the most important functions of taxonomy. The saving of time and effort
is thus one way in which we can define the utility and purpose of classification.
SAQ 3
The pre-evolutionary era can further be subdivided into four important periods for
the sake of convenience and better understanditig.
I) The Ancient Greeks and Romans
11) The Herbalists
111) The Transition Period and
IV) The Post-Herbal Period
In the present unit we shall tell you briefly about some ancient Greek and Roman
naturalists and scholars who made important contributions to plant sciences in
general and plant classification in particular in their own classical way. They made
observations on living ofgmisms and classified them. The period of those classic
ancient Greeks and Romans culminated into a period of'descriptive botany when
several important herbals were written by several celebrated physicians, naturalists
and other scholars. It was a significant departure from the earlier works which were
written for utilitarian reasons only and had little academic importance. You will learn
about those herbalists of the Middle Ages and their work also in this unit.
Theophrastus 'Historia Plantarum' survived the centuries from his death until the
invention of printing in the mid 15th century. It was among the first books to be
printed and, as it began to appear again and again in Greek, Latin, German and
English, .until by 1866 more than 20 editions had appeared in practically every
European language.
Caius Plinius Secundus, also known as Pliny the Elder (23-79 A.D.), a Roman
naturalist and scholar, born in Como, mentioned nearly a thousand plants in his
'Historia Naturalis'. This work in 37 volumes is a very elaborate encyclopedia, often
critical but of great value, since it contains a wealth of i'nformation not to be found
elsewhere. Sixteen of these volumes dealt largely with plants, treated such topics as
medicinal properties, classification, forestry, plant anatomy, and the practice of
horticulture.
Pliny seemed to have little interest in the ilassification of plant on the basis of their
resemblances. He classified trees as forest trees, exotic trees, and fruit trees. He
divided farest trees into glandiferous and pitch-bearing; the former including all the
catkin bearing trees, the latter most of the Conifers.
Pedanios Dioscorides, a Cicilian Greek, who lived in the fir$ century A.D. was the
most important botanist after Theophrastus. He was a military physician under
Emperor Nero of Rome. His principal writings were on medical botany. During the
Middle Ages his work was far more popular than that of Theophrastus though he
knew less about botany. For more than 1500 years he was the alpha and omega of
European botany. His chief contribution, 'Meteria Medica' was description of about
six hundred species mainly mediterranean, used for medicinal purposes. Another
manuscript, the 'Anicia Juliana Codex' was prepared for the daughter of a Byzantine
emperor about 512 A.D. from material ariginally compiled by Dioscorides. It
contained coloured illustqations of plants and is still in existence.
The most significant aspect of this period of early Greek and Roman naturalists and
scholars was that men began to think originally and fundamentally about the
universe, supernaturalism and mythology were abandoned in preference to logic.
During this time the fobndations for scientific study of nature were laid.
14
The Herbal of Valerius Cordus published posthumously in 1561; contained not only
medicinal plants found in Germany and Italy, but also many foreign wdods, barks
and fruits, acquired from other cohntries. His descriptions of plants were more
accurate than those of any of his contemporaries.-He was the first to draw up
botanical descriptions in a systematic form, including details about the type of plants,
form of parts, colour, odour, taste etc.
The influence of gardening on the development of botany may be seen in the work
of John Gerard (1545-1612). Gerard published an account in 1696 which contained
over 1033 species of the plants growing in his garden. He published his greatest work
'The Herbal' or 'General Historia of Plants' in 1597 illustrated with over 1800
wood-cuts of plants. The plants he described were arranged in three books, the first
included grasses, second all herbs for medicine and sweet smelling, the third one dealt
with bushes, fruit-bearing plants, resins, and mushrooms. The result of this was a
rough classification, based on superficial resemblances and upon the relationship of
plant with man.
All of these works, in which the botanical descriptions were subordinated to the
medicinal details of the' plants, were overloaded with the widest speculations
regarding their supposed medicinal virtues, and often contained much that would be
dismissed today as pure fantasy. Gradually, however, a crude system came into being,
based partly upon rough morphology and partly upon the medicinal characteristics of
plants.
A significant contribution to taxonomy was made at this time by Caspar Bauhin. His
'Phytopinax' (1596) described 2700 species, beginning with Graminaceae and ending
with Papilionaceae. In Bauhin's 'Prodromus Theatri Botanici' (1620) and 'Pinax
Theatri Botanici' (1623) we find one of the first attempts to utilise a 'binomial system
of nomenclature' which, however, Bauhin did not use exclusively; you will read about
.bionomial system of nomenclature in Unit 4. The Pinax Theatri Botanici contained
d e s ~ r i ~ t i oofn 6CUMl species. H e attempted a classification by natural affinities
proceeding from the grasses through the lilies, dicot herbs, and shrubs and trees.
However, he was singularly oblivious to the importance of flowers and fruits.
Handed down fpm the ancients, and elaborated on by the herbalists, was the
'Doctrine of Signatures', which was based 011features that resembled portions of the
human body, must have been so created for the purpose of-furnishing remedies for
the ailments of those portions of the body. Many plants were given common names
that referred to supposed remedial properties, and the origin of many scientific names
that are still in use today may be traced to this doctrine. For example, the generic
name Hepatica, the shape of the leaves in that genus being thought to resemble the
shape of the liver, and the leaves, therefore, to be a remedy for diseases of that organ.
haustellate types, ii) winged from wingless forms among insects, iii) monitoring other
animals like birds, fishes and whales. Orders like Coleoptera, Diptera and Psychae
(now Lepidoptera) were created by him.
The first important work on b ~ t hanimal and plants was initiate4 by John Ray
(1627-1705) Fig. 1,3 H e followed Aristotle and divided animals those with blood and
those apparently without blood. The former were further divided into those with gills
and those with lungs. He also used other characteristics like the production of eggs
or living young ones, the possession of broad hooves or narrow claws, the existence
of two or more incisor teeth, and so on. Thus, he covered almost the entire animal
kingdom. This system of classification was appreciated because, the system was
logical, practical and easy to follow. H e produced the first rudiments of our
hierarchical classification and the first good definition of the species as a reproducing
unit.
Then, in 18th century, the work of Linnaeus (Fig. 1.4) and his followers (Haartman,
1751, 1764, Kolreuter, 1761-66) hefped systematics to advance further.
Linnaeus-was first to introduce the hierarchical system both in animal and plant
kingdom. H e followed four categories (class, order, genus and species) for the animal
world.
H e also used the name Mammalia instead of Quadrupeda in 1758. H e presented the
first character-based classification which serves as basis for the arrangement of
specimens in the collections and the binomial nomenclature for information storage
and retrieval system for the great bulk of biological data. H e was called "Father of
'raxonomy"
The criticism and improvements of the Linnean system continued but the first serious
attempt to improve it was made by Lamarck. H e divided the animal kingdom into
three section on the basis of their mental capacities. His division of animals into four
major types was-vertebrates, molluscs, arthropods and radiates.
Lamarck's taxonomy was mainly static in nature and his classification does not show
its true value to the development of modern taxonomy. His most important support
to the systematics was his preciseness in the diagnosis of various taxa. Many of his
generic and other names are still in use. He displayed the groups of animals in form
of a branching tree, which was the beginning of the,use of phylogeny in systematics.
Cuvier (1769-1832) was critical of Lamarck's evolutionary concept which thereafter
remained in oblivion for half a century. Cuvier's outright criticisms of Lamarck greatly
affected the progress of animal taxonomy during that period. And the following
decades were known by emergence of three great ideas which influence a lot of
progress in animal taxonomy. The first of these was 'Von Baer's Law' which was put
forward by Von Baer. The, theory states that "The younger the embryo the more
closely did it resemble other embryos of the same stage of development."
The second idea was an explanation of this rule by Ernst Hackel, which is known as
Recapitulation theory or "Ontogeny repeats phylogeny"
wig. 1.4
Due to,Linneaus, January 1,1758
is of great importane in
Zoological taxonomy because
nomenclature was started on this
day.
16
The third theory of evolution through natural selection was put forward jointly by
Darwin,and Wallace in 1859. This theory supported the idea of both Lamarck and
Cuvier. Thus, this theory gave the greatest support to systematic zoology.
By the 19th century Darwin's ideas had been widely accepted. The Naturalists started
searching for missing links between seemingly unconnected taxa and finally
reconstructed the "primitive ancestors".'Phylogenetic trees were proposed by Hackel
which also stimulated several empirical workers and large number of species were
discovered and described.
Then came the modern taxonomy and with its development workers realised that the
Linnean species based on one or two specimens are not as perfect as those which are
based .on population studies. After these studies Mayr considered species as groups
of interbreeding natural population. This idea of population taxonomy was useful in
establishing "polytypic concept".
New tetms like New Systematics and biosystematics were added. The faxonomists
then realised the importance of other characters in sound classification. Then the
scientists started searching for characters from field studies and various characteristics
"A
In India, history of botanical science dates back to the Vedic period (appro~.1500
B.C. to 600 B.C.). It started with the development of agriculture when people
undertook cultivation of various food crops. In the literature of that period, several
technical terms are available which were used for the description of plants and plants
parts. Details on classification, morphology and anatomy of important economic
plants are available. Plants were studied in relation to medicine, agriculture and
horticulture. The early treatise on hotany like 'Ayorveda', 'Charka-Samhita' and
'Sushruta-Samhita' were, therefore, primarily utilitarian. It is said that more than
2500 years ago Bhikshu Atreya, a well-known teacher at the Univefsity of Taxila
asked one of his pupils Jivaka to collect, identify and describe the properties of all
the plants growing within a distance of four 'Yojanas' of the University. Dignitaries
like Dhanvantari, Nagarjun, Agnivesh Jatukarna, Bhela Harita etc., had an intimate
knowledge of the characteristics of medicinal plants.
One of the earliest works dealing with plant life in a scientific manner is
'Vrikshayurveda' compiled by Parashara even before the beginning of the Christian
era, and which formed the basis of botanical teachings and medical studies in ancient
India. The book deals with the categorisation, morphology and anatomy of plants,
nature and properties of soil types, distribution and description of forests in the
country. A system of classification based on comparative morphology of plants is also
available in this work.
This system of plant classification was considered much more advanced than any
other system proposed anywhere in the world before eighteenth century. Many
families ('ganas') were clearly distinguished as to be recognisable today. The present
day family Cruciferae was called 'Swastikaganiyam' because the arrangement of
sepals and petals resembled a 'Swastika', and thc flowers were further characterised
by a superior ovary, four free sepals, four free petals, six stamens-two of which are
shorter, and four longer two carpels fused and form a two-locular fruit. The present
day Cucurbitaceae was called 'Tripusaganiyam' and was characterised by having
flowers which were epigynous, sometimes bisexual with five sepals, five fused petals,
three stamens and a unilocular ovary with three rows of ovules. This clearly shows
that Parashara's work was not only utilitarian but a compilation of scientific studies
too. It shows that here in India, classification of plants was attempted in that remote
period on scientific lines.
I
,
I
I
SAQ 4
Match the words given in column A with column B.
Column A
1. Origin of Species
2. Father of Medicine
3. The Stagirite
4. Founder of First
Botanical Garden
5. Father of Botany
6. Historia Planiarum
7 . Historia Naturalh
8 . Anicia Juliana Codex
9. Vrikshayurveda
10. Swastikaganiyam
11. Tripusaganiyam .
Column B
Dioscorid'es
Theophrastus
Parashara
Cruciferae
charlei Darwin
Democritus
Cucurbitaceae
Aristotle
Aristotle
Pliny
Theophrastus
1.8 SkTMMARU
c Taxonomy is the science of naming and classifying organisms.
o There is need for classification of living organisms because scientific name of a
plant communicates the species and genus and from that family can also be
determined. The scientific name also predicts much information that will be
applicable to that plant.
The three major objectives of taxonomy are :
1) learning of all kinds of plants and animals,
2) assemblage of knowledge gained,
3) demonstration of diversity of living kingdom and its relation to man's
understanding of evoution.
e The main goal of taxonomy is to develop a workable classification that reflects
evolutionary relationships and gives a nomenclature and identification.
History of plant classification is very old, starting from ancient Greeks and'
Romans. The herbalists, the transition period td post-herbal period. In India.
history of botanical sciences dates back approximately 1500 B.C. to 600 B.C.
1.10 ANSWERS
Self-assessment Questions
2) F, 3) F, 4) T, 5) T, 6) T
2) study of the diversity; identification, classification, evolution; common
. characteristics; system; genus; families; ranks; species, genera, families
3) 1) non evolutionary, 2) non genetic, 3) flexible, 4) non constant, 5).diphyletic.
6) should not, 7) only reduction, 8) should nbt, 9) does nqt include,
10) does not depict.
1) 1) T ,