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Bessey system

System of plant classification

  • 3 min read
  • 4 chapters

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Description

Bessey based his system on the tradition of de Candolle, Bentham and Hooker and Hallier. He was also influenced by Darwin and Wallace. He taught that taxonomy must be based on evolutionary principles. Like Wettstein he placed the Ranales at the origin of Angiospermae.

He considered Spermatophyta as having a polyphyletic origin, being made up of three different phyla, of which he only treated Anthophyta (syn.: Angiosperms). In that he used the same names for the subclasses of both monocotyledons and dicotyledons, this is contrary to contemporary rules on plant nomenclature that require names to be unique. However Bessey actually used a qualifying hyphenation (Alternifoliae-Strobiloideae and Oppositifoliae-Strobiloideae), a distinction not always recognised in reference to this scheme. With some modifications, most modern classifications - for example, those of Cronquist (1981, 1983, 1988), Takhtajan (1969, 1980, 1983, 1991), Stebbins (1974), R. Dahlgren (1975, 1980, 1983; R. Dahlgren et al. 1981; R. Dahlgren and F. N. Rasmussen 1983; R. Dahlgren and K. Bremer 1985; G. Dahlgren 1989), and Thorne (1976, 1981, 1983, 1992) - follow the Bessey tradition.

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