History of Systematics

• Folk taxonomy

  A type of taxonomy that focuses on simply describing if a plant is edible or not, poisonous or not. 

  Plant taxonomy is one of the earliest disciplines of Botany

  It is essential in ethnobiological studies, despite being old school or traditional. 
• Emperor Shen Nung (3000 B.C.)

  Emperor of China

  List of medicinal plants

  Introduced acupuncture

  Father of Agriculture and Medicine in China

  Divine Husbandman's Materia Medica included 365 medicines derived from minerals, plants, and animals.
• Trees, shrubs, herbs


  The three first classification systems often broke plants down into three groups, what are they?
• Eber’s medical papyrus classified plants based on habitat.
• Eber's medical papyrus is a papyrus in Egypt (1500 BC) that classified plants based on their habitats.
• Aristotle wrote a book entitled Historia Animalium, wherein he classifies animals by with blood or without blood. 

  He is also the father of zoology.
• In Aristotle’s book Historia Animalium, live bearing (humans and mammals) and egg-bearing (birds and fishes) are animals with blood
• In Aristotle’s book Historia Animalium, insects, shelled and non-shelled crustaceans, and mollusks are animals without blood.
• Theophrastus

  His classification was based on growth form — annual, biennial, perennial. 

  He also used species and genus to group things. 

  He is a student of Aristotle and Plato.

  The father of botany
• De Historia Plantarum and De Causis Plantarum are the titles of the books by Theophrastus that were used for taxonomic purposes until the Middle ages in Europe.
• PEDANIUS DIOSCORIDES (40–90 AD)

  Greek physician, pharmacologist, botanist,

  wrote De materia medica, which is a 5-volume Greek encyclopedia by him that is about herbal medicine and related medicinal substances. Widely read for more than 1,500 years, and was used in medicine until the 16th century, and was copied several times.
• GAIUS PLINIUS SECUNDUS (23-29 AD)

  • Father of Botanical Latin - later kept for botanical science.
  • Pliny the elder
  • Roman army, later in the Roman state.
  • wrote many books, the only one that has survived was Naturalis Historia
  • 160 volumes, in which Gaius described several plants and gave them Latin names.
  • Many names we still recognize, like Populus alba and Populus nigra.
• 8 founders of modern botany that give rise to book printing and Linnaeus later named plant groups that was derived from their names to honor them:

  Otto Brunfels

  Hieronymus Bock

  Leonhart Fuchs

  Pietro Mattioli

  William Turner

  Matthias de L’Obel

  John Gerard

  Charles de L’Ecluse
• 6 plant groups name that was named by Linnaeus to honor them. Brunfelsia (Brunfels)

  1. Fuchsia (Fuchs)
  2. Mattiolia (Mattioli) 
  3. Turnera (Turner) 
  4. Gerardia (Gerard)
  5. Lobelia (L’Obel) 
• 9 Names under the Exploratory Phase in the History of Systematics.

  1. Luca Ghini
  2. Andrea Ceasalpino
  3. Bauhin Brothers (Jean and Gaspard)
  4. John Ray
  5. Joseph de Tournefort
  6. Carolus Linnaeus
  7. Pierre Magnol
  8. George de Buffon
  9. Michel Adanson
• During the Exploratory Phase, the first herbarium was established in 1553 in Padua, Italy.
• Luca Ghini 

  • He founded the first botanical garden, which is the first herbarium collection. 
  • He used CENTRAL METHOD, wherein careful observation and note taking was essential and applied. 
  • After that, herbarium was established in different parts of the world.  
• They defined species as a natural group of organisms with generalized or idealized patterns. They also gave the concept of species, synonyms, classification, and nomenclature. 

  • Cesalpino 
  • Bauhin Brothers (Jean and Gaspard)
  • Ray
  • De Tournefort
• Carolus Linnaeus 

  • He is the FATHER OF TAXONOMY
  • He published Species Plantarum  
  • He introduces the binomial nomenclature, sexual system in classification, and artificial system on few characters. 
• Andrea Cesalpino

  • He is the FIRST TAXONOMIST
  • He had a work entitled De Plantis that contained 1500 species. 
  • Group of species: herbs and trees. 
  • Plant families: Brassicaceae and Arsteraceae 
  • Important criterion: embryo, seed, seedling. 
  • Used Inductive Reasoning (Posteriori) that is based on observations, facts, and past events.
• Pierre Magnol

  • He is the first one to use the FAMILY CONCEPT. 
  • He used conspicuous (clearly visible) characters of roots, stems, mad flowers in classification. 
  • Listed 76 families. 
• Jean Bauhin

  • One of the Bauhin that published Historia Plantarum Universalis (General History of Plants.
  • He recognized genera and species as major taxonomic levels.
• Gaspard Bauhin

  • One of the Bauhin who wrote Pinax Theatri Botanici. Pinax means to register. 
  • He included synonyms, which was a great necessity of that time, and the scientific binomial system of classification. 
• John Ray

  • He made the establishment of species as the ultimate unit of taxonomy. 
  • His classification of plants in his work Historia Plantarum made an important step in modern taxonomy. 
  • He classified plants based on similarities and differences that were based on observations. 
  • He made the terms monocotyledons and dicotyledons. 
  • He used genus as a factual taxonomic group. 
• Joseph De Tournefort

  • He use a single Latin name for genus, and few descriptive words for the species, which is a major step for the development of binomial nomenclature.
  • He beautifully illustrates Elements De Botanique.
  • His classification is based on the structure of the flower and fruit.
  • He is also the author of the modern genus concept “Herbarium”
• Carolus Linnaeus 

  • He was the first to frame principles for defining natural genera and species of organisms. 
  • His work entitled Systema Naturae (The System of Nature) presented a hierarchical classification, the three kingdoms of nature: stone, plants, and animals. Each kingdom was subdivided into classes, orders, genera, species, and varieties. 
• Genera Plantarum is considered as the crowning taxonomic achievement of Linnaeus, which presented a system based on “natural characters” of genera. It also included morphological descriptions of all the parts of flowers and fruit. 
• Key is a term by Joseph De Tournefort pertaining to a set of easily recognizable and usable characters of an organism.
• George De Buffor or Comte De Buffon

  • He termed the word genealogy and focused on it. 
  • According to him, allied species arose from a common ancestor, which was the beginning of a phylogenetic relationship. 
  • He is also the first one to recognize ecological succession. 
  • Countered the theory of pre-existence. 
  • His observations were based on similar environments, wherein different regions have different flora and fauna. 
• Michel Adanson 

  • He is the Grandfather of Numerical Taxonomy. 
  • The first one to do intrinsic weighing of characters. 
  • He reflected natural system 
  • His work “Familles Des plantes” — contemp (disregards) “systems” — proposed a natural classification based upon all characters rather than upon a few arbitrarily (based on random choice or personal whim) selected ones. 
• Consolidation phase is a phase where taxonomy is marked by the publication of a number of monumental works on plant classification. 
• 5 major names under the Consolidation phase. 

  1. Augustin De Candolle 
  2. George Bentham 
  3. Joseph Hooker 
  4. Charles Darwin
  5. Theodosius Dobzhansky 
• Augustin De Candolle

  • He was the first to put the idea of “Nature’s war”
  • He recognizes the difference between the morphological and physiological characteristics of organs.  
• Plantarum historia succulentarum and Astragalogia are two works of Augustin De Candolle in which he proposed a natural method of plant classification. 
• George Bentham and Joseph Hooker

  • They proposed natural system of classification of seed plants. 
  • They are closely affiliated to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. 
  • They also published Genera Plantarum. 
• Charles Darwin

  • He published On the Origin of Species.
  • He is also the one who suggested the principle or Theory of Natural Selection
  • He believed in evolution of species by common decent.
  • He also made the Tree of Life.
• Theodosius Dobzhansky 

  • He published “Biological Species Concept”
  • He defines species as a group of interbreeding population reproductive isolated from any other such group of population. 
• Biosystematics Phase

  • It is the phase wherein there is an improvement in the area of taxonomic concept and application.
  • Moreover, there is a development of techniques like two-dimensional paper chromatography.
  • New techniques give details as amino acid sequencing and determining nucleotide sequence in DNA and RNA.
• The “New Systematics” is aimed at achieving the goal of Holotaxonomy (Straightforward).
• Huxley proposed the term “New Systematics”