I studied the later system of classification of plants gave more importance to .............?

Question

floral charcters coz they are more stable.

i want to know that whether the other parts of the plant not stable?if so why?& also how the floral character ca be more stable?

Answer 1

I think the more appropriate term here is that flowers are consistent. This means that the pattern of floral arrangement is quite consistent in a genus or a family for example. Remember that there are plants which belong to the same family and genus even if one is a shrub and the other one is a tree. Using this premise I think that pretty much describes why flowers are used for classification.

Hope this helps...

Answer 2

Hi Smart,

Yes, flower parts are more stable; however, their use in earlier classification systems involved more than their stability.

It was the belief of botanists that flowers developed in the earlier stages of the evolution of Angiosperms and had a tendency to remain a constant throughout the evolution of plants.  The successful changes in the parts of flowers were usually predicated upon environmental niches that favored different means of pollinization, seed dispersal, seeds' food storage, etc.  Another facet of these relationships was their ability to cross-pollinate, which is a great indicator of the close relationship between two plants.  Cross-pollinization would most likely could not have factored into a classification system based upon other parts of plants.

When a plant's flower evolved into another type of flower, that flower then became the "parent" for another lineage (family) of flowering plants.  Stems, branches, roots, leaves, etc. more quickly changed to adapt to environmental influences, which lead to the tribes, varieties, species, etc. of a parent plant's lineage.

These beliefs of the earlier botanists are now being greatly substantiated by DNA studies.

I hope this helps.

~Flower Power