Plant Taxonomy

1
Plant Taxonomy

• Horticulture

2
How Plants are named

• Most plants have more than one common name.
• For example
• The trout lily is also known as the tiger lily,
  adders-tongue, dogs tooth violet, and the
  yellow snowdrop.
• The Judas tree and the redbud are the same tree
  but are known by these different names in
  different parts of the country.

3
How Plants are named

• Common names can be confusing, since two
  different plants may have the same common name.
• The cowslip, in New York state, is a
  marsh-loving, buttercup-like plant. In England
  it is a primrose like plant found in dry, grassy
  slopes.
• Both have yellow flowers, but, apart from that
  they have little in common.

4
Binomial Naming

• Early scholars always wrote in Latin or Greek.
• This way of naming plants caused some problems.
• The names were often long and difficult to say.
• Nepeta floribus interrupte spicatis pedunculatis
  is the name for Catnip
• Linnaeus, a Swedish botanist, simplified things
  by developing the binomial (two-name) system.
• He gave each plant two Latin names as their
  scientific name.

5
Binomial Naming

• For example he renamed Catnip Nepeta cataria.
• The first name is called the generic name.
• Plants having the same generic name belong to the
  genus name.
• The second name is known as the specific name or
  special name.
• Plants with the same specific name belong to the
  same species.

6
Taxonomy

• Taxonomy Chart
• Kingdom
• Division or Phylum
• Class
• Order
• Family
• Genus
• Species
• Variety(cultivar)

7
Taxonomy

• Taxonomist
• Are scientists who identify and classify plants.
• They use an international set of rules to ensure
  that every different species has a different
  binomial name.
• This set of rules is known as the International
  Code of Botanical Nomenclature.

8
Plant Families

• Related genera (plural of genus) w/ similar
  flower structures are grouped together into major
  units called families
• Example
• Rose family, Rosaceae
• Prunus (plum), Fragaria (strawberry), Rubus
  (bramble), and Malus (apple)
• All have a simple flower w/ separate petals

9

• The Asteraceae (aster family) is the largest of
  all plant families
• Has 2 kinds of flowers packed together to form a
  single head or flower
• Outer flowers (ray flowers) may have larger or
  small petals
• Inner flowers (disk flowers) always have small
  petals
• Family includes these genera aster, silver
  mound, yarrow, sunflower, mum, cineraria, and
  marigold