ON THE HIGHER TAXA OF EMBRYOBIONTA

Autor: Armen Takhtajan, Walter Zimmermann, Arthur Cronquist
Rok vydání: 1966
Předmět:
Zdroj: TAXON. 15:129-135
ISSN: 1996-8175
0040-0262
DOI: 10.2307/1217531
Popis: The general system of plants and the nomenclature of higher taxa at the level of divisions and classes are now unstable and in a state of confusion. The well known schemes of classification by which all plants are grouped into only 4 or 5 divisions have been largely abandoned because they do not adequately reflect the great diversity within the plant kingdom. Phycologists have found it necessary to recognize several divisions of algae, and students of higher plants have also felt the need for a greater number of divisions. Harold C. Bold (1957) has gone so far as to recognize 24 divisions of plants. There is now a bewildering plethora of systems and partial systems, each of which may lay some claim to being the best representation of the similarities, differences, and evolutionary relationships within all or some part of the plant kingdom. The same groups appear over and over again in many of these systems of classification, but at different taxonomic ranks and in different arrangements with respect to each other. It is forcibly brought to our attention that even when the evolutionary relationships are not in dispute, it is often pcssible to produce more than one system of classification which is in accord with these relationships. Each of the authors of the present paper has published works dealing with the general system of higher plants (Zimmermann, 1959; Cronquist, 1960; Takhtajan, 1964 . We have been in correspondence for several years, but our ideas have been to a large extent developed independently of each other. In August of 1965 two of the authors (Cronquist and Takhtajan) had an opportunity for extended personal consultation in Leningrad. These talks and subsequent correspondence with the third author (Zimmermann) have resulted in the production of this paper. No person, and no group, has the authority to decide what system of classification should be adopted by all, or what parts should be taken from which system to produce a universally accepted classification. Nonetheless, it seems obvious that it would be useful if the majority of botanists were agreed on a single overall scheme. It is perhaps not difficult for professional taxonomists to remember several classifications with differing names and ranks for the generally recognized groups, but it is difficult for a student to find his way through such a jungle. We think that it might therefore be of some interest to see what sort of general system of higher plants might be mutually acceptable to three botanists from three different countries, such as ourselves. If other botanists also find this scheme acceptable, we shall be happy; if not, we have still had a profitable discussion and a pleasant pipe-dream. Our purpose here is taxonomic rather than phylogenetic. We believe that any proper
Databáze: OpenAIRE
Externí odkaz: