I've got an old book (30s) entitled The Wright Encyclopaedia of Gardening
and the plant description structure is

Order: A division of the Vegetable Kingdom
Genus: A subsidiary part of the Order.
Species: A subsidiary part to the Genus.

So, are the terms different today ?


Richard.

In article , Richard Brooks
writes
I've got an old book (30s) entitled The Wright Encyclopaedia of Gardening
and the plant description structure is

Order: A division of the Vegetable Kingdom
Genus: A subsidiary part of the Order.
Species: A subsidiary part to the Genus.

So, are the terms different today ?

Still the same, eg:

Kingdom Plantae
Division Magnoliophyta
Class Magnoliopsida
Order Magnoliales
Family Magnoliaceae
Genus Magnolia
Species Magnolia virginiana

There are a few 'subs' and 'supers' which are available, eg sub-order
--
Kay
"Do not insult the crocodile until you have crossed the river"

In article ,
Kay writes:
|
| Still the same, eg:
|
| Kingdom Plantae
| Division Magnoliophyta
| Class Magnoliopsida
| Order Magnoliales
| Family Magnoliaceae
| Genus Magnolia
| Species Magnolia virginiana
|
| There are a few 'subs' and 'supers' which are available, eg sub-order

Plus a few things above Kingdom for people interested in those levels,
but I am not sure if that have agreed names yet. Some unicellular
organisms classified as plants in 1930 aren't considered plants today.

And, of course, Race and Variety are sometimes used for subdivisions
of Species for specialist purposes - including horticulture! I don't
think that this has changed much since 1930.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

In article , Richard Brooks
writes
I've got an old book (30s) entitled The Wright Encyclopaedia of Gardening
and the plant description structure is

Order: A division of the Vegetable Kingdom
Genus: A subsidiary part of the Order.
Species: A subsidiary part to the Genus.

So, are the terms different today ?

There are various horticultural 'orders', but the RHS Encyclopedia of
Garden Plants gives 'Plant classification and nomenclature' as:

Family e.g. [Rosaceae]
Genus [Rosa Prunus]
Species [Rosa eglanteria Prunus lusitanica]
Subspecies [Prunus lusitanica subsp.azorica]
Varietas (variety) [Rosa gallica var. officinalis]
and form
Cultivars [Rosa' Cordon Bleu']
--
Alan & Joan Gould - North Lincs.

In article , Richard Brooks
writes
I've got an old book (30s) entitled The Wright Encyclopaedia of Gardening
and the plant description structure is

Order: A division of the Vegetable Kingdom
Genus: A subsidiary part of the Order.
Species: A subsidiary part to the Genus.

So, are the terms different today ?


Richard.

The old concept of an Order is more like the modern concept of a Family.
Nowadays both terms are used. For example the family Rosaceae contains
apples, pears, quinces, cherries, roses, brambles, avens, cinquefoils,
meadowsweets, kerrias, spiraeas, and many other plants. The order
Rosales (sensu APG II) includes the family Rosaceae, and 8 other
families, including buckthorns, elms, hemp, mulberries and nettles.

Botanists trying to represent classifications of large numbers of plants
use several more ranks - Domain, Kingdom, Division or Phylum, Class,
Order, Family, Tribe, Genus, Section, Series, Species, Variety and Form,
plus sub- and super- forms on occasion - subfamily, subgenus and
subspecies are quite commonly used, and I've seen quite a few of the
others in the literature.
--
Stewart Robert Hinsley

Alan Gould wrote:
In article , Richard Brooks
writes
I've got an old book (30s) entitled The Wright Encyclopaedia of
Gardening and the plant description structure is

Order: A division of the Vegetable Kingdom
Genus: A subsidiary part of the Order.
Species: A subsidiary part to the Genus.

So, are the terms different today ?

There are various horticultural 'orders', but the RHS Encyclopedia of
Garden Plants gives 'Plant classification and nomenclature' as:

Family e.g. [Rosaceae]
Genus [Rosa Prunus]
Species [Rosa eglanteria Prunus lusitanica]
Subspecies [Prunus lusitanica subsp.azorica]
Varietas (variety) [Rosa gallica var. officinalis]
and form
Cultivars [Rosa' Cordon Bleu']

Thanks Alan and thanks to everyone who were so helpful to reply.

It's a bit puzzling when people tend to talk in one version of relative
terms or another. Thank god for commen terms and pointing at things!

Richard.

On Mon, 24 Jan 2005 19:10:27 +0000, Stewart Robert Hinsley
wrote:

In article , Richard Brooks
writes
I've got an old book (30s) entitled The Wright Encyclopaedia of Gardening
and the plant description structure is

Order: A division of the Vegetable Kingdom
Genus: A subsidiary part of the Order.
Species: A subsidiary part to the Genus.

So, are the terms different today ?


Richard.

The old concept of an Order is more like the modern concept of a Family.
Nowadays both terms are used. For example the family Rosaceae contains
apples, pears, quinces, cherries, roses, brambles, avens, cinquefoils,
meadowsweets, kerrias, spiraeas, and many other plants. The order
Rosales (sensu APG II) includes the family Rosaceae, and 8 other
families, including buckthorns, elms, hemp, mulberries and nettles.

Is DNA analysis applicable to plants? I assume it is. In which case,
did they get it right for most family classifications, or are the text
books going to have to be seriously revised?


--
Chris

E-mail: christopher[dot]hogg[at]virgin[dot]net

In article , Chris Hogg
writes
On Mon, 24 Jan 2005 19:10:27 +0000, Stewart Robert Hinsley
wrote:

In article , Richard Brooks
writes
I've got an old book (30s) entitled The Wright Encyclopaedia of Gardening
and the plant description structure is

Order: A division of the Vegetable Kingdom
Genus: A subsidiary part of the Order.
Species: A subsidiary part to the Genus.

So, are the terms different today ?


Richard.

The old concept of an Order is more like the modern concept of a Family.
Nowadays both terms are used. For example the family Rosaceae contains
apples, pears, quinces, cherries, roses, brambles, avens, cinquefoils,
meadowsweets, kerrias, spiraeas, and many other plants. The order
Rosales (sensu APG II) includes the family Rosaceae, and 8 other
families, including buckthorns, elms, hemp, mulberries and nettles.

Is DNA analysis applicable to plants? I assume it is. In which case,
did they get it right for most family classifications, or are the text
books going to have to be seriously revised?



P.F. Stevens maintains the state of the art at the Angiosperm Phylogeny
Website

http://www.mobot.org/MOBOT/research/APweb/

The APG II paper is available on the web as well, which gives a
convenient listing of families recognised by the Angiosperm Phylogeny
Group.

I think there were bigger problems with the suprafamilial levels -
Cronquist's sub-class Dilleniidae is a phantasm - than with the
composition of families, but there's been a fair bit of redrawing of
family boundaries, and the odd group has been found to be misplaced.

The internal classification of Rosaceae was flawed, but as far as I can
tell, no one has produced a corrected classification yet. Maloideae and
Amygdaloideae were natural groups, but it's more convenient to extend
their circumscription somewhat. A large chunk (excluding Kerrieae
(Kerria and related genera) and the nitrogen fixing members of the old
Dryadeae) of the old Rosoideae is also a natural group, but Spiraeoideae
is not.

The maples (Aceraceae) and horse chestnuts (Hippocastanaceae) have been
sunk in the mostly tropical Sapindaceae. I've looked at the DNA data
myself, and one count retain Aceraceae and Hippocastanceae if relatively
small chunks were cut out of Sapindaceae (e.g. Koelreuteria).

There's been quite a bit of shuffling around Malvaceae and Tiliaceae.
I've got a bit of material about this at

http://www.malvaceae.info/Classification/overview.html

(which I'm in the process of revising in the light of a 2004 paper).
--
Stewart Robert Hinsley

In article ,
Stewart Robert Hinsley wrote:

P.F. Stevens maintains the state of the art at the Angiosperm Phylogeny
Website

http://www.mobot.org/MOBOT/research/APweb/

Thanks for that. I can't say that I am impressed by its approach,
though I know that almost all journals are dominated by similar ones,
and I am not excluding Nature[*] :-(

At least he is aware of the problem: "remember that even well-supported
trees remain no more than hypotheses".

Convergent evolution is as possible at the biochemical level as it is
at the morphological level, after all ....
[*] By which I mean performing analyses or running programs that produce
relationships and 'confidence' without implementing a well-defined
mathematical model.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.