History of plant systematics

Abū l-Khayr's botanical work[6] is the most complete Andalusi botanical text known to modern scholars. It is noted for its detailed descriptions of plant morphology and phenology.^[5]

Early modern period

In the 16th century, works by

The book that had an enormous accelerating effect on the science of plant systematics was Species Plantarum (1753) by Linnaeus. It presented a complete list of the plant species then known to Europe,^[1] ordered for the purpose of easy identification using the number and arrangement of the male and female sexual organs of the plants. Of the groups in this book, the highest rank that continues to be used today is the genus. The consistent use of binomial nomenclature along with a complete listing of all plants provided a huge stimulus for the field.^{[citation needed]}

Although meticulous, the classification of Linnaeus served merely as an identification manual; it was based on phenetics and did not regard evolutionary relationships among species.^[1] It assumed that plant species were given by God and that what remained for humans was to recognise them and use them (a Christian reformulation of the scala naturae or Great Chain of Being). Linnaeus was quite aware that the arrangement of species in the Species Plantarum was not a natural system, i.e. did not express relationships. However he did present some ideas of plant relationships elsewhere.

Modern and contemporary periods

Significant contributions to plant classification came from de Jussieu (inspired by the work of Michel Adanson) in 1789 and the early nineteenth century saw the start of work by de Candolle, culminating in the Prodromus.^{[citation needed]}

A major influence on plant systematics was the theory of

Currently, the strict use of epithets in botany, although regulated by international codes, is considered unpractical and outdated. The very notion of species, the fundamental classification unit, is often up to subjective intuition and thus can not be well defined. As a result, estimate of the total number of existing "species" (ranging from 2 million to 100 million) becomes a matter of preference.^[1]

While scientists have agreed for some time that a functional and objective classification system must reflect actual evolutionary processes and genetic relationships, the technological means for creating such a system did not exist until recently. In the 1990s DNA technology saw immense progress, resulting in unprecedented accumulation of DNA sequence data from various genes present in compartments of plant cells. In 1998 a ground-breaking classification of the angiosperms (the APG system) consolidated molecular phylogenetics (and especially cladistics or phylogenetic systematics) as the best available method. For the first time relatedness could be measured in real terms, namely similarity of the molecules comprising the genetic code.^[1]

Timeline of publications

• Historia Plantarum
  .
• De Materia Medica
  .
• Cesalpino, Andrea (1583). De plantis libri XVI.
• Historia Plantarum
  .
• Linnaeus, Carl (1753). Species Plantarum.
• Adanson, Michel (1763). Familles des plantes
  . Vincent.
• de Jussieu; Antoine Laurent (1789). Genera Plantarum, secundum ordines naturales disposita juxta methodum in Horto Regio Parisiensi exaratam. apud viduam Herissant, typographum, viâ novâ B. M. sub signo Crucis aureæ.
• de Candolle
  ; A. P.; et al. (1824–1873). Prodromus systemati naturalis regni vegetabilis sive enumeratio contracta ordinum, generum specierumque plantarum huc usque cognitarum, juxta methodi naturalis normas digesta.
• Lindley, John (1846). The Vegetable Kingdom. (In English, with list of systems since 1703 (John Ray) until 1845)

See also

• History of botany
• Conservation movement
• Environmental protection
• Ethnobotany
• Automated species identification
• Pl@ntNet

References