Classification Of Plant Family Essay

The classification of plants is incredibly complex, and living things constantly defy the rules that scientists try to impose on them. However, it is important for the horticulturalist to have a sound understanding of plant taxonomy, especially as knowledge of which family a plant belongs to gives some indication of how a plant will look and perform in the garden and what growing conditions it needs in order to thrive.
Plant families
Plants which share basic characteristics regarding their flowers, fruit, and other organs, are grouped into families. Some families contain clearly closely related or specialised plants, while others contain a huge number of apparently diverse and dissimilar plants. The names of the majority of plant families have traditionally been based on the most dominant genus within that family, but some families take their name from a common name or shared

A genus is a taxonomic group containing one or more species. There may only be one genus within a plant family, or there may be well over a thousand. Gardeners often use the word ‘family’ when ‘genus’ would be more appropriate. Species in the same genus share a number of significant physical attributes, making this possibly the most useful level at which plants can be identified for gardening, horticultural, and practical purposes. In most genera, the similarities are quite clear, but some genera contain a range of plants so diverse it is hard to imagine how they might be related. The genus name will usually have been given to a plant by the botanist who first studied it. A genus name can be derived from any source, for example descriptive of the plant’s physical attributes, named after the botanist who first studied it, or linked to a tale from myth or folklore. Genera names begin with capital letters and appear in print in italics. Their endings follow Latin grammatical rules for