Nelumbo - The Bulletin of the Botanical Survey of India

V. Puri ¹

Affiliations
1 School of Plant Morphology, Meerut, IN

Abstract

The systematist has to look forward to workers in different disciplines of botany for features and correlations that may be of interest to him in making his classification the "epitome of our knowledge of plants". It has been our endeavour here to indicate the way in which studies in floral anatomy have helped the taxonomist in achieving this object.

Variations in the vascular plan of the flower, as in floral structures, are numerous and they have been classified under the following heads : (1) Reduction, (2) Amplification, (3) Cohesion and (4) Adnation. All these 'modifications have, in some way or another, helped the taxonomist by providing him additional data.

Some specific examples from Ranunpulaceae, Umbelliferae, Polygalaceae, Gentianaceae, Papilionatae, Rutaceae and Apocynaceae are then given to show how floral anatomy has been helpful to the systematist in strengthening or sometimes rejecting his inferences. Besides, it is inferred that floral anatomy may also contributed valuable data in determining correlations in larger groups such as orders.

In conlusion it is pleaded that floral anatomists should make their studies more comprehensive than what they hitherto have been. Besides, they should also realize that, like any other branch of study, floral anatomy also has certain limitations. Ignoring them will be as harmful to the cause of floral anatomy as exaggerating them.

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V. Puri ¹

Affiliations
1 School of Plant Morphology, Meerut, IN

Abstract

A scientific study of classification of plants started with Linnaeus when in 1753 he published his monumental 'Species Plantarum' that made him the father of systematic botany. Linnaeus' system of classification was an artificial one, based as it was on tome arbitrarily selected characters.' He himself regarded it as "one of convenience until the tíme when a. Natural System could take-its place". Subsequently, however, classification began to be based on general resemblances and differences and the species came to be regarded as a concept rather than a fixed entity. Such a classification came to be known as a 'natural', 'logical' or more recently 'general' classification.

It is emphasized that in the present state of our knowledge it is almost impossible to trace any group phylogenies. Even if we are able to determine them it will be very difficult to incorporate them in our classificatory schemes. It is therefore concluded that the main task of the systematist should be "to make a general classification which shall express as far as possible in rational order all that is known concerning plants and animals. This ideal which, even if never attained, is one which may still make the systematist proud in the magnitude of his task. It is an ideal greater than the phylogenetic ideal which is included in it and one which in the process of attempted attainment must make taxonomy what it should be, the focal point of biology".

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