1.
Taxonomy (biology)
–
Taxonomy is the science of defining groups of biological organisms on the basis of shared characteristics and giving names to those groups. The exact definition of taxonomy varies from source to source, but the core of the remains, the conception, naming. There is some disagreement as to whether biological nomenclature is considered a part of taxonomy, the broadest meaning of taxonomy is used here. The word taxonomy was introduced in 1813 by Candolle, in his Théorie élémentaire de la botanique, the term alpha taxonomy is primarily used today to refer to the discipline of finding, describing, and naming taxa, particularly species. In earlier literature, the term had a different meaning, referring to morphological taxonomy, ideals can, it may be said, never be completely realized. They have, however, a value of acting as permanent stimulants. Some of us please ourselves by thinking we are now groping in a beta taxonomy, turrill thus explicitly excludes from alpha taxonomy various areas of study that he includes within taxonomy as a whole, such as ecology, physiology, genetics, and cytology. He further excludes phylogenetic reconstruction from alpha taxonomy, thus, Ernst Mayr in 1968 defined beta taxonomy as the classification of ranks higher than species. This activity is what the term denotes, it is also referred to as beta taxonomy. How species should be defined in a group of organisms gives rise to practical and theoretical problems that are referred to as the species problem. The scientific work of deciding how to define species has been called microtaxonomy, by extension, macrotaxonomy is the study of groups at higher taxonomic ranks, from subgenus and above only, than species. While some descriptions of taxonomic history attempt to date taxonomy to ancient civilizations, earlier works were primarily descriptive, and focused on plants that were useful in agriculture or medicine. There are a number of stages in scientific thinking. Early taxonomy was based on criteria, the so-called artificial systems. Later came systems based on a complete consideration of the characteristics of taxa, referred to as natural systems, such as those of de Jussieu, de Candolle and Bentham. The publication of Charles Darwins Origin of Species led to new ways of thinking about classification based on evolutionary relationships and this was the concept of phyletic systems, from 1883 onwards. This approach was typified by those of Eichler and Engler, the advent of molecular genetics and statistical methodology allowed the creation of the modern era of phylogenetic systems based on cladistics, rather than morphology alone. Taxonomy has been called the worlds oldest profession, and naming and classifying our surroundings has likely been taking place as long as mankind has been able to communicate
2.
Plant
–
Plants are mainly multicellular, predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. The term is generally limited to the green plants, which form an unranked clade Viridiplantae. This includes the plants, conifers and other gymnosperms, ferns, clubmosses, hornworts, liverworts, mosses and the green algae. Green plants have cell walls containing cellulose and obtain most of their energy from sunlight via photosynthesis by primary chloroplasts and their chloroplasts contain chlorophylls a and b, which gives them their green color. Some plants are parasitic and have lost the ability to produce amounts of chlorophyll or to photosynthesize. Plants are characterized by sexual reproduction and alternation of generations, although reproduction is also common. There are about 300–315 thousand species of plants, of which the great majority, green plants provide most of the worlds molecular oxygen and are the basis of most of Earths ecologies, especially on land. Plants that produce grains, fruits and vegetables form humankinds basic foodstuffs, Plants play many roles in culture. They are used as ornaments and, until recently and in variety, they have served as the source of most medicines. The scientific study of plants is known as botany, a branch of biology, Plants are one of the two groups into which all living things were traditionally divided, the other is animals. The division goes back at least as far as Aristotle, who distinguished between plants, which generally do not move, and animals, which often are mobile to catch their food. Much later, when Linnaeus created the basis of the system of scientific classification. Since then, it has become clear that the plant kingdom as originally defined included several unrelated groups, however, these organisms are still often considered plants, particularly in popular contexts. When the name Plantae or plant is applied to a group of organisms or taxon. The evolutionary history of plants is not yet settled. Those which have been called plants are in bold, the way in which the groups of green algae are combined and named varies considerably between authors. Algae comprise several different groups of organisms which produce energy through photosynthesis, most conspicuous among the algae are the seaweeds, multicellular algae that may roughly resemble land plants, but are classified among the brown, red and green algae. Each of these groups also includes various microscopic and single-celled organisms
3.
Flowering plant
–
The flowering plants, also known as Angiospermae or Magnoliophyta, are the most diverse group of land plants, with 416 families, approx. 13,164 known genera and a total of c.295,383 known species, etymologically, angiosperm means a plant that produces seeds within an enclosure, in other words, a fruiting plant. The term angiosperm comes from the Greek composite word meaning enclosed seeds, the ancestors of flowering plants diverged from gymnosperms in the Triassic Period, during the range 245 to 202 million years ago, and the first flowering plants are known from 160 mya. They diversified extensively during the Lower Cretaceous, became widespread by 120 mya, angiosperms differ from other seed plants in several ways, described in the table. These distinguishing characteristics taken together have made the angiosperms the most diverse and numerous land plants, the amount and complexity of tissue-formation in flowering plants exceeds that of gymnosperms. The vascular bundles of the stem are arranged such that the xylem and phloem form concentric rings, in the dicotyledons, the bundles in the very young stem are arranged in an open ring, separating a central pith from an outer cortex. In each bundle, separating the xylem and phloem, is a layer of meristem or active formative tissue known as cambium, the soft phloem becomes crushed, but the hard wood persists and forms the bulk of the stem and branches of the woody perennial. Among the monocotyledons, the bundles are more numerous in the stem and are scattered through the ground tissue. They contain no cambium and once formed the stem increases in diameter only in exceptional cases, the characteristic feature of angiosperms is the flower. Flowers show remarkable variation in form and elaboration, and provide the most trustworthy external characteristics for establishing relationships among angiosperm species, the function of the flower is to ensure fertilization of the ovule and development of fruit containing seeds. The floral apparatus may arise terminally on a shoot or from the axil of a leaf, occasionally, as in violets, a flower arises singly in the axil of an ordinary foliage-leaf. There are two kinds of cells produced by flowers. Microspores, which divide to become pollen grains, are the male cells and are borne in the stamens. The female cells called megaspores, which divide to become the egg cell, are contained in the ovule. The flower may consist only of parts, as in willow. Usually, other structures are present and serve to protect the sporophylls, the individual members of these surrounding structures are known as sepals and petals. The outer series is usually green and leaf-like, and functions to protect the rest of the flower, the inner series is, in general, white or brightly colored, and is more delicate in structure. It functions to attract insect or bird pollinators, attraction is effected by color, scent, and nectar, which may be secreted in some part of the flower
4.
Magnoliids
–
Magnoliids are a group of flowering plants. Until recently, the group included about 9,000 species, including magnolias, nutmeg, bay laurel, cinnamon, avocado, black pepper, tulip tree and that group is characterized by trimerous flowers, pollen with one pore, and usually branching-veined leaves. Magnoliidae is the name of a subclass, and magnoliids is an informal name that does not conform to the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi. The circumscription of a subclass will vary with the system being used. The only requirement is that it must include the family Magnoliaceae, the informal name magnoliids is used by some researchers to avoid the confusion that recently surrounds the name Magnoliidae. More recently, the group has been redefined under the PhyloCode as a clade comprising the Canellales, Laurales, Magnoliales. Chase & Reveal have proposed, Magnoliidae as the used for the entire group of flowering plants. The APG III and its predecessor systems did not originally use formal botanical names above the rank of order, under those systems, larger clades were usually referred to by informal names, such as magnoliids or magnoliid complex. The formal name in Linnean nomenclature was specified in a separate APG publication as the existing name Magnolianae Takht, the APG III recognizes a clade within the angiosperms for the magnoliids. The circumscription is, The clade includes most of the groups of the angiosperms. This clade was formally named Magnoliidae in 2007 under provisions of the PhyloCode, the Cronquist system used the name Magnoliidae for one of six subclasses. In their systems, the name Magnoliidae is used for a larger group including all dicotyledons. This is also the case in some of the derived from the Cronquist system. Dahlgren divided his Magnolianae into ten orders, more than other systems of the time and this revised system diverges from the Cronquist system, but agrees more closely with the circumscription later published under APG II. Comparison of classification systems is often difficult, two authors may also describe the same group with nearly identical composition, but each may then apply a different name to that group or place the group at a different taxonomic rank. For example, the composition of Cronquists subclass Magnoliidae is nearly the same as Thornes superorder Magnolianae, because of these difficulties and others, the synoptic table below imprecisely compares the definition of magnoliid groups in the systems of four authors. For each system, only orders are named in the table, all orders included by a particular author are listed and linked in that column. When a taxon is not included by that author, but was included by an author in another column, the sequence of each system has been altered from its publication in order to pair corresponding taxa between columns
5.
Magnoliales
–
The Magnoliales comprise an order of flowering plants. This was placed in the Dialypetalae in subclass Choripetalae of class Dicotyledones, from the above it will be clear that the plants included in this order by APG have always been seen as related. They have always placed in the order Magnoliales. The difference is that earlier systems have included other plants
6.
Magnoliaceae
–
The Magnoliaceae /mæɡˌnoʊliˈeɪsiː/ are a flowering plant family, the magnolia family, in the order Magnoliales. It consists of two subfamilies, Magnolioideae, of which Magnolia is the most well-known genus, and Liriodendroidae, unlike most angiosperms, whose flower parts are in whorls, the Magnoliaceae have their stamens and pistils in spirals on a conical receptacle. This arrangement is found in fossil plants and is believed to be a basal or early condition for angiosperms. The flowers also have parts not distinctly differentiated into sepals and petals, the poorly differentiated perianth parts that occupy both positions are known as tepals. The family has about 219 species in seven genera, although some systems include all of subfamily Magnolioideae in genus Magnolia. The genera in the family include Lirianthe, Liriodendron, Magnolia, Michelia, the monophyly of Magnoliaceae is supported by a number of shared morphological characters among the various genera in the family. Most have bisexual flowers, showy, fragrant, radial, leaves are alternate, simple, and sometimes lobed. The inflorescence is a solitary, showy flower with indistinguishable petals and sepals, sepals range from six to many, stamens are numerous and feature short filaments which are poorly differentiated from the anthers. Carpels are usually numerous, distinct, and on a receptacle or torus. The fruit is an etario of follicles which usually become closely appressed as they mature, seeds have a fleshy coat and color that ranges from red to orange. Magnoliaceae flowers are pollinated, except for Liriodendron, which is bee pollinated. The carpels of Magnolia flowers are especially thick to avoid damage by beetles that land, crawl, the seeds of Magnolioideae are bird dispersed, while the seeds of Liriodendron are wind dispersed. This distribution pattern has isolated some species, while keeping others in close contact, extant species of the Magnoliaceae are widely distributed in temperate and tropical Asia from the Himalayas to Japan and southwest through Malaysia and New Guinea. Due to the morphological similarity, no consensus has yet emerged on the number of genera in the family. The development of DNA sequencing at the end of the 20th century had a impact on the research of phylogenetic relationships within the family. The employment of ndhF and cpDNA sequences has refuted many of the traditionally accepted phylogenetic relationships within the Magnoliaceae, for example, the genera Magnolia and Michelia were shown to be paraphyletic when the remaining four genera of the Magnolioideae are split out. In fact, even many of the subgenera have been found to be paraphyletic, although no completely resolved phylogeny for the family has yet been determined, these technological advances have allowed systematists to broadly circumscribe major lineages. As a whole, the Magnoliaceae are not a significant family
7.
Magnolia
–
Magnolia is a large genus of about 210 flowering plant species in the subfamily Magnolioideae of the family Magnoliaceae. It is named after French botanist Pierre Magnol, appearing before bees did, the flowers are theorized to have evolved to encourage pollination by beetles. To avoid damage from pollinating beetles, the carpels of Magnolia flowers are extremely tough, fossilised specimens of M. acuminata have been found dating to 20 million years ago, and of plants identifiably belonging to the Magnoliaceae date to 95 million years ago. Magnolia shares the characteristic with several other flowering plants near the base of the flowering plant lineage such as Amborella. As with all Magnoliaceae, the perianth is undifferentiated, with 9–15 tepals in 3 or more whorls, the flowers are bisexual with numerous adnate carpels and stamens are arranged in a spiral fashion on the elongated receptacle. The fruit dehisces along their dorsal sutures, the pollen is monocolpate, and the embryo development is of the Polygonium type. The name Magnolia first appeared in 1703 in the Genera of Charles Plumier, english botanist William Sherard, who studied botany in Paris under Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, a pupil of Magnol, was most probably the first after Plumier to adopt the genus name Magnolia. He was at least responsible for the part of Johann Jacob Dilleniuss Hortus Elthamensis and of Mark Catesbys Natural History of Carolina, Florida. These were the first works after Plumiers Genera that used the name Magnolia, Carl Linnaeus, who was familiar with Plumiers Genera, adopted the genus name Magnolia in 1735 in his first edition of Systema Naturae, without a description, but with a reference to Plumiers work. In 1753, he took up Plumiers Magnolia in the first edition of Species Plantarum, there he described a monotypic genus, with the sole species being Magnolia virginiana. He placed it in the synonymy of Magnolia virginiana var. fœtida, under Magnolia virginiana Linnaeus described five varieties. In the tenth edition of Systema Naturae, he merged grisea with glauca, by the end of the 18th century, botanists and plant hunters exploring Asia began to name and describe the Magnolia species from China and Japan. The first Asiatic species to be described by western botanists were Magnolia denudata and Magnolia liliiflora, soon after that, in 1794, Carl Peter Thunberg collected and described Magnolia obovata from Japan and at roughly the same time Magnolia kobus was also first collected. With the number of increasing, the genus was divided into the two subgenera Magnolia and Yulania. Magnolia contains the American evergreen species M. grandiflora, which is of importance, especially in the southeastern United States, and M. virginiana. Yulania contains several deciduous Asiatic species, such as M. denudata and M. kobus, classified in Yulania, is also the American deciduous M. acuminata, which has recently attained greater status as the parent responsible for the yellow flower colour in many new hybrids. Relations in the family Magnoliaceae have been puzzling taxonomists for a long time, because the family is quite old and has survived many geological events, its distribution has become scattered. Some species or groups of species have been isolated for a long time, to create divisions in the family, solely based upon morphological characters, has proven to be a nearly impossible task
8.
Binomial nomenclature
–
Such a name is called a binomial name, a binomen, binominal name or a scientific name, more informally it is also called a Latin name. The first part of the name identifies the genus to which the species belongs, for example, humans belong to the genus Homo and within this genus to the species Homo sapiens. The formal introduction of system of naming species is credited to Carl Linnaeus. But Gaspard Bauhin, in as early as 1623, had introduced in his book Pinax theatri botanici many names of genera that were adopted by Linnaeus. Although the general principles underlying binomial nomenclature are common to these two codes, there are differences, both in the terminology they use and in their precise rules. Similarly, both parts are italicized when a binomial name occurs in normal text, thus the binomial name of the annual phlox is now written as Phlox drummondii. In scientific works, the authority for a name is usually given, at least when it is first mentioned. In zoology Patella vulgata Linnaeus,1758, the original name given by Linnaeus was Fringilla domestica, the parentheses indicate that the species is now considered to belong in a different genus. The ICZN does not require that the name of the person who changed the genus be given, nor the date on which the change was made, in botany Amaranthus retroflexus L. – L. is the standard abbreviation used in botany for Linnaeus. – Linnaeus first named this bluebell species Scilla italica, Rothmaler transferred it to the genus Hyacinthoides, the ICN does not require that the dates of either publication be specified. Prior to the adoption of the binomial system of naming species. Together they formed a system of polynomial nomenclature and these names had two separate functions. First, to designate or label the species, and second, to be a diagnosis or description, such polynomial names may sometimes look like binomials, but are significantly different. For example, Gerards herbal describes various kinds of spiderwort, The first is called Phalangium ramosum, Branched Spiderwort, is aptly termed Phalangium Ephemerum Virginianum, Soon-Fading Spiderwort of Virginia. The Latin phrases are short descriptions, rather than identifying labels, the Bauhins, in particular Caspar Bauhin, took some important steps towards the binomial system, by pruning the Latin descriptions, in many cases to two words. The adoption by biologists of a system of binomial nomenclature is due to Swedish botanist and physician Carl von Linné. It was in his 1753 Species Plantarum that he first began using a one-word trivial name together with a generic name in a system of binomial nomenclature. This trivial name is what is now known as an epithet or specific name
9.
Carl Linnaeus
–
Carl Linnaeus, also known after his ennoblement as Carl von Linné, was a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, who formalised the modern system of naming organisms called binomial nomenclature. He is known by the father of modern taxonomy. Many of his writings were in Latin, and his name is rendered in Latin as Carolus Linnæus, Linnaeus was born in the countryside of Småland, in southern Sweden. He received most of his education at Uppsala University. He lived abroad between 1735 and 1738, where he studied and also published a first edition of his Systema Naturae in the Netherlands and he then returned to Sweden, where he became professor of medicine and botany at Uppsala. In the 1740s, he was sent on journeys through Sweden to find and classify plants. In the 1750s and 1760s, he continued to collect and classify animals, plants, and minerals, at the time of his death, he was one of the most acclaimed scientists in Europe. The philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau sent him the message, Tell him I know no man on earth. The German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote, With the exception of Shakespeare and Spinoza, Swedish author August Strindberg wrote, Linnaeus was in reality a poet who happened to become a naturalist. Among other compliments, Linnaeus has been called Princeps botanicorum, The Pliny of the North and he is also considered as one of the founders of modern ecology. In botany, the abbreviation used to indicate Linnaeus as the authority for species names is L. In older publications, sometimes the abbreviation Linn. is found, Linnæus was born in the village of Råshult in Småland, Sweden, on 23 May 1707. He was the first child of Nicolaus Ingemarsson and Christina Brodersonia and his siblings were Anna Maria Linnæa, Sofia Juliana Linnæa, Samuel Linnæus, and Emerentia Linnæa. One of a line of peasants and priests, Nils was an amateur botanist, a Lutheran minister. Christina was the daughter of the rector of Stenbrohult, Samuel Brodersonius, a year after Linnæus birth, his grandfather Samuel Brodersonius died, and his father Nils became the rector of Stenbrohult. The family moved into the rectory from the curates house, even in his early years, Linnæus seemed to have a liking for plants, flowers in particular. Whenever he was upset, he was given a flower, which calmed him. Nils spent much time in his garden and often showed flowers to Linnaeus, soon Linnæus was given his own patch of earth where he could grow plants
Media related to Sweetbay Magnolia at Wikimedia Commons