Plant taxonomy is the science that finds, describes, classifies, identifies, and names plant

Plant

Plants are living organisms belonging to the kingdom Plantae. Precise definitions of the kingdom vary, but as the term is used here, plants include familiar organisms such as trees, flowers, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae. The group is also called green plants or...

s. It thus is one of the main branches of taxonomy

Alpha taxonomy

Alpha taxonomy is the discipline concerned with finding, describing and naming species of living or fossil organisms. This field is supported by institutions holding collections of these organisms, with relevant data, carefully curated: such institutes include natural history museums, herbaria and...

.

Plant taxonomy is closely allied to plant systematics

History of plant systematics

The history of plant systematics—the biological classification of plants—stretches from the work of ancient Greek to modern evolutionary biologists. As a field of science, plant systematics came into being only slowly, early plant lore usually being treated as part of the study of...

, and there is no sharp boundary between the two. In practice, "plant systematics" is involved with relationships between plants and their evolution, especially at the higher levels, whereas "plant taxonomy" deals with the actual handling of plant specimen

Specimen

A specimen is a portion/quantity of material for use in testing, examination, or study.BiologyA laboratory specimen is an individual animal, part of an animal, a plant, part of a plant, or a microorganism, used as a representative to study the properties of the whole population of that species or...

s. The precise relationship between taxonomy and systematics, however, has changed along with the goals and methods employed.

Plant taxonomy is well known for being turbulent, and traditionally there is no really close agreement on circumscription and placement of taxa

Taxon

|thumb|270px|[[African elephants]] form a widely-accepted taxon, the [[genus]] LoxodontaA taxon is a group of organisms, which a taxonomist adjudges to be a unit. Usually a taxon is given a name and a rank, although neither is a requirement...

. See the list of systems of plant taxonomy.

Identification and classification

Two goals of plant taxonomy are the identification and classification of plants. The distinction between these two goals is important and often overlooked.

Plant identification

Plant identification

Plant identification is the process of matching a specimen plant to a known taxon. It uses various methods, most commonly dichotomous keys or multi-access keys. The natural key systems use morphological characteristics that can be compared with known databases to achieve typically the plants' genus...

is the determination of the identity of an unknown plant by comparison with previously collected specimens or with the aid of books or identification manuals. The process of identification connects the specimen with a published name. Once a plant specimen has been identified, its name and properties are known.

Plant classification is the placing of known plants into groups or categories to show some relationship. Scientific classification follows a system of rules that standardizes the results, and groups successive categories into a hierarchy

Hierarchy

A hierarchy is an arrangement of items in which the items are represented as being "above," "below," or "at the same level as" one another...

. For example, the family

Family (biology)

In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...

 to which the lilies

Lilium

Lilium is a genus of herbaceous flowering plants growing from bulbs. Most species are native to the temperate northern hemisphere, though the range extends into the northern subtropics...

 belong is classified as follows:

• Kingdom: Plant
  Plant
  Plants are living organisms belonging to the kingdom Plantae. Precise definitions of the kingdom vary, but as the term is used here, plants include familiar organisms such as trees, flowers, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae. The group is also called green plants or...
  
  ae
• Division: Magnoliophyta
• Class: Liliopsida
  Liliopsida
  Liliopsida is a botanical name for the class containing the family Liliaceae . It is considered synonymous with the name monocotyledon. Publication of the name is credited to Scopoli : see author citation...
  
  
• Order: Liliales
  Liliales
  Liliales is an order of monocotyledonous flowering plants. This order of necessity includes the family Liliaceae, but both the family and the order have had a widely disputed history, with the circumscription varying greatly from one taxonomist to another...
  
  
• Family: Liliaceae
  Liliaceae
  The Liliaceae, or the lily family, is a family of monocotyledons in the order Liliales. Plants in this family have linear leaves, mostly with parallel veins but with several having net venation , and flower arranged in threes. Several have bulbs, while others have rhizomes...
  
  
• Genera : ... ...

The classification of plants results in an organized system for the naming and cataloging of future specimens, and ideally reflects scientific ideas about plant inter-relationships.

Classification systems

• APG system
  APG system
  The APG system of plant classification is the first, now obsolete, version of a modern, mostly molecular-based, system of plant taxonomy that was published in 1998 by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group. It was superseded in 2003 by a revision, the APG II system, and then in 2009 by a further...
  
  
• APG II system
  APG II system
  The APG II system of plant classification is the second, now obsolete, version of a modern, mostly molecular-based, system of plant taxonomy that was published in April 2003 by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group. It was a revision of the first APG system, published in 1998, and was superseded in 2009...
  
  
• APG III system
  APG III system
  The APG III system of flowering plant classification is the third version of a modern, mostly molecular-based, system of plant taxonomy...
  
  
• Bessey system
  Bessey system
  A system of plant taxonomy, the Bessey system was published inBessey considered Spermatophyta as having a polyphyletic origin, being composed by three different phyla, of which he only treated Anthophyta ....
  
  
• Cronquist system
  Cronquist system
  The Cronquist system is a taxonomic classification system of flowering plants. It was developed by Arthur Cronquist in his texts An Integrated System of Classification of Flowering Plants and The Evolution and Classification of Flowering Plants .Cronquist's system places flowering plants into two...
  
  
• Melchior system
  Melchior system
  This is the named Melchior system, "a reference in all taxonomic courses", detailing the taxonomic system of the Angiospermae according to A. Engler's Syllabus der Pflanzenfamilien 1964 ....
  
  

See also

• American Society of Plant Taxonomists
  American Society of Plant Taxonomists
  The American Society of Plant Taxonomists is a botanical organization formed in 1935 to "foster, encourage, and promote education and research in the field of plant taxonomy, to include those areas and fields of study that contribute to and bear upon taxonomy and herbaria", according to its bylaws...
  
  
• Botanical nomenclature
  Botanical nomenclature
  Botanical nomenclature is the formal, scientific naming of plants. It is related to, but distinct from taxonomy. Plant taxonomy is concerned with grouping and classifying plants; botanical nomenclature then provides names for the results of this process. The starting point for modern botanical...
  
  
• Herbarium
  Herbarium
  In botany, a herbarium – sometimes known by the Anglicized term herbar – is a collection of preserved plant specimens. These specimens may be whole plants or plant parts: these will usually be in a dried form, mounted on a sheet, but depending upon the material may also be kept in...
  
  
• History of plant systematics
  History of plant systematics
  The history of plant systematics—the biological classification of plants—stretches from the work of ancient Greek to modern evolutionary biologists. As a field of science, plant systematics came into being only slowly, early plant lore usually being treated as part of the study of...
  
  
• International Association for Plant Taxonomy
  International Association for Plant Taxonomy
  The International Association for Plant Taxonomy promotes an understanding of plant biodiversity, facilitates international communication of research between botanists, and oversees matters of uniformity and stability in plant names . The IAPT was founded on July 18, 1950 at the Seventh...
  
  
• Taxonomy of cultivated plants