Plant systematics by Sarah Ashfaq

1. Introduction to plant
systematics
Sarah Ashfaq

2. Introduction
• Early botanists such as Theophrastus, Pedanius Dioscorides,
and Pliny started the science of plant systematics, as each of
them classified many plant species in their books.
• Charles Darwin was the main influence on the science, with the
publication of The Origin Of Species. He may have been the
first to use phylogeny, and called the rapid development of all
the higher plants within recent geological time "an abominable
mystery".

3. Theophrastus Pedanius Dioscorides Pliny
Charles Darwin

4. Definition
• Plant systematics
“Plant systematics deals with interrelation between plants and their evolutionary
descent.”
• Systematic Botany
“The systematic botany is the study of identifying, naming and classifying all
plants.”
• Taxonomy
“Arrangement by rules.”
• Plant Taxonomy
“Classification/Arrangement of plants following certain rules or principles.”

5. Classification
• “It is the arrangement
of plants into groups
having common
characteristics.”
• Characteristics such as
their reproductive
structures, physical
features, and
evolutionary history.
Figure: Plants classification
Source: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-classification-
of-plants-and-their-types

6. Figure: Plant kingdom classification chart with examples
Source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/669136457110045537/

8. Identification
• It is recognition of
certain characters of
flowers, fruits, leaf
or stem and the
application of a
name of plant with
those particular
characteristics.
How to Identify a Plant
•Note the climate and region.
•Observe stems and branches.
•Note the leaf shape and size.
•Check the leaf arrangement.
•Note fruits and flowers.
•Look for barbs, hairs, or thorns.
•Note the smell.
•Check the roots.

9. Figure: Identification of leaves Figure: Identification of flowers

10. Figure: Identification of fruits Figure: Identification of stem and root types

11. 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.

12. “International Code of Botanical
Nomenclature”
• The code is based on a two-name (binomial) system developed by the
famous botanist Linnaeus.
• Each plant is given a first name and last name, generally based in
Latin, that is unique to each species.

14. References
• Simpson, M. G. (2019). Plant systematics. Academic press.
• Darwin, C. (2016). On the origin of species, 1859.
• Green, M. L. (1927). History of plant nomenclature. Bulletin of
Miscellaneous Information (Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew), 403-415.
• Elhariri, E., El-Bendary, N., & Hassanien, A. E. (2014, December). Plant
classification system based on leaf features. In 2014 9th International
Conference on Computer Engineering & Systems (ICCES) (pp. 271-276).
IEEE.
• Lee, S. H., Chan, C. S., Wilkin, P., & Remagnino, P. (2015, September).
Deep-plant: Plant identification with convolutional neural networks.
In 2015 IEEE international conference on image processing (ICIP) (pp.
452-456). IEEE.

15. Thankyou