Classification of Plants

The classification of plants are in several different manners and approach, and the distance away from the garden, the more the name indicates a plant's relationship to other plants, and relate to us about its place in the plant world rather than in the cultivated garden. Usually, only the Family, Genus and species are of significance to the gardener, but we sometimes include subspecies, variety or cultivar to identify a particular plant.

Starting from the beginning to the extreme category, plants have traditionally been classified as follows. Each group has the characteristics of the level above it, but has some distinguishing features. The further and downward the scale you go, the more minor the differences become, until you end up with a classification which applies to only one plant.

Class: Angiospermae (Angiosperm) these are plants that produces flowers.

Gymnospermae (Gymnosperms) these are plants which do not produce flowers.

Subclass: Dicotyledonae (Dicotyledon, Dicots) plants that possess two leaves.

Monocotyledonae (Monocotyledons, Monocots) plats with one seed leaf.

Superorder: This is a group of related Plant families, classified in the order in which they are thought to have developed their differences from a common ancestor.

Superorders are made up of six in Dicotyledonae which are Hamamelidae, Magnoliidae, Dilleniidae, Caryophyllidae, Asteridae and Rosidae, as well as four superorders in the Monocotyledonae which are Commelinidae, Arecidae, Liliidae and Alismatidae.

Order: In each of the superorder, they are further divided into several Orders.

Family: Each of the order are further divided into families, which are plants with many botanical features in common and is the highest classification which is normally used. Modern botanical classification assigns a type plant to each family, which has the particular nature that separate the group of plant from others, name the family after the plant. The numbers of plant families varies according to each botanist classification.

Subfamily: The family may therefore be divided into a number of subs – families that are group together of plant within the family that possess some significant botanical differences.

Genus: This is the part that is most familiar in the plant name; the plants in a genus are easily recognizable as belonging to the same group.

Species: This is the level that gives a concrete definition of an individual plant. The name describes most aspect of the plant such as; the color of the flower, shape or size of the leaves, or name after its location where it was first found. Species and Genus name are referring to a single plant, and such is used to identify a particular plant. Species names are usually written after the Genus name in small letters without any capital latter.

Variety: A Variety is a plant that is only narrowly different from the species plant, but the differences are not as insignificant as the differences in a form.

Form: A form consist of a plant within a species that has minor botanical differences such as the color of flower or shape of leaves.

Cultivar: Cultivars are usually cultivated variety, a particular plant that came to existence either naturally or through deliberate hybridization and can be reproduced to produce more of the same plant.