From sandstro@cac.washington.edu Fri Jun 17 00:33:01 EDT 1994
Article: 35616 of rec.gardens
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From: sandstro@cac.washington.edu (Bob Sandstrom)
Newsgroups: rec.gardens
Subject: how to learn taxonomy
Date: 15 Jun 1994 22:53:33 GMT
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Hi.  I'm too lazy to actually grow any interesting plants at home, so
I'm planning to walk around a botanical garden or two this summer,
and try to figure out something about plant taxonomy that way.  Mostly at
the order, family, and genus level, I guess.  The hypothetical
newsgroup sci.botany doesn't seem to exist;
figured you folks might be able to help.

I have a question about the way taxonomy is being done by the academics
today.  Do they occasionally reorganize orders and families,
based on newly-discovered DNA similarity?  If so, is there a particular
book or journal that has got the orders and families up-to-date?
Or are the notions of ``orders'' and ``families'' defined in such a way
that those notions won't ever have to readjust in the light of gene
sequencing technology, etc? 

Also, any advice on how to train myself to recognize some of those 100's of
see-once-in-a-while genera?  Should I focus on learning all those adjectives
and yes/no tests?  Should I just memorize every plant in the local
arboretum?  Are all those books with color pictures any good at
actually teaching a person to recognize plants?

Thanks.

Bob Sandstrom
sandstro@cac.washington.edu


From klier@cobra.uni.edu Fri Jun 17 00:33:40 EDT 1994
Article: 35670 of rec.gardens
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From: klier@cobra.uni.edu
Newsgroups: rec.gardens
Subject: Re: how to learn taxonomy
Message-ID: <1994Jun16.105657.28711@cobra.uni.edu>
Date: 16 Jun 94 10:56:57 -0500
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In article <2to0pd$7cr@news.u.washington.edu>, sandstro@cac.washington.edu (Bob Sandstrom) writes:
> 
> I have a question about the way taxonomy is being done by the academics
> today.  Do they occasionally reorganize orders and families,
> based on newly-discovered DNA similarity?  
Yup.  But that's been true any time we've had a new tool that helps us
examine and talk about relationships between organisms.  DNA is just the
latest in a number of such tools... taxonomies are always being revised
to reflect new understanding...  and differences of opinion...  Usually
drives non-taxonomists up the wall...
If so, is there a particular
> book or journal that has got the orders and families up-to-date?

There's a bunch of really technical journals that have articles on
different families... but nothing comprehensive ... with so many
plants, and so few plants really well understood, it just isn't
practical to compile all the information... it's out of date or
reinterpreted too quickly!

> Or are the notions of ``orders'' and ``families'' defined in such a way
> that those notions won't ever have to readjust in the light of gene
> sequencing technology, etc? 
I wish, ;-)  but no...  
> 
> Also, any advice on how to train myself to recognize some of those 100's of
> see-once-in-a-while genera?  Should I focus on learning all those adjectives
> and yes/no tests?  Should I just memorize every plant in the local
> arboretum?  Are all those books with color pictures any good at
> actually teaching a person to recognize plants?

Bob, it's really tough to learn the basics of taxonomy from a book...
the amount of technical vocabulary required to really get your feet
under you is pretty amazing (I toss about 200 terms -- all critically
basic -- at my students the first couple of weeks of class!)... and you
need to be able to make some distinctions that are pretty picky... the
difference between carpel and locule, for instance.

Personally, I'd suggest a short course or a tutoring session on flower
structures from a botanist... who can work with you on the basics,
and get you going with a text book.  Then work on learning to recognize
some basic plant families... here in Iowa, 35 families are all you need
to learn to "catch" about 80% of the flora... in other areas, those families
will give you about 80% of the common flora, about 60-70% of the total
flora.  If you can recognize a plant to family, you've got a much
easier time figuring out what you've got...  there are just too many
genera to work on sight-recognizing them in any reasonable length of
time, imho.

Wish I could just invite you out to sit in on class this fall... it'd
be simpler for both of us!

Kay Klier  Biology Dept  UNI



From rhalgren@casbah.acns.nwu.edu Fri Jun 17 00:34:27 EDT 1994
Article: 35680 of rec.gardens
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From: rhalgren@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Robert Halgren)
Newsgroups: rec.gardens
Subject: Re: how to learn taxonomy
Date: 16 Jun 1994 17:54:07 GMT
Organization: Northwestern University, Evanston IL USA
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In article <2to0pd$7cr@news.u.washington.edu>,
Bob Sandstrom <sandstro@cac.washington.edu> wrote:
>
>I have a question about the way taxonomy is being done by the academics
>today.  Do they occasionally reorganize orders and families,
>based on newly-discovered DNA similarity?  If so, is there a particular
>book or journal that has got the orders and families up-to-date?
>Or are the notions of ``orders'' and ``families'' defined in such a way
>that those notions won't ever have to readjust in the light of gene
>sequencing technology, etc? 
	That depends on who you ask I suppose.  DNA technology is really
neat, but hard to interpret.  Also, it isn't cheap.  With that in mind, it
is unlikely that people will go out and sequence every single genome just to
put things in the proper taxonomic order.  What many people do do, however,
is to pick a gene that is common to most if not all life forms and see how
it diverges between species.  For example, Cytochrome C, a gene involved in
respiration, is in virtually everything that uses oxygen.  By looking at the
sequence of that gene isolated from yeast (or whatever) and comparing it to
human (also or whatever), and knowing what the average mutation rate is, we
can say that yeast and people shared a common ancestor x million years ago. 
People will argue for years (forever?) about what the average mutation rate
is, and various other variables in the system, so by no means is this a
concrete system.  I think they recently (within the last 10 years?) decided
to split bacteria up into three different groups based on data like this,
but bacteria are simpler than plants, obviously.
	Also, in order to build taxonomic trees, you have to compare
everything in your tree to everything else in your tree, and decide on a
single common ancestor.  This sounds simple, but you can get a different
ancestor depending on which formula you use -and they are all mathematically
valid.  You may have seen the press on the "Eve" hypothesis, where they
traced people back to a single woman in Africa somewhere.  You can also
trace it back to almost any other region with equal validity, depending on
what assumptions you make.  When it comes right down to it, it is simpler to
base your taxonomy on physical characteristics, and resort to DNA sequencing
to sort out the really hard ones.  Just remember, its just a system for
making sense of the world, and as our view of the world changes, so does our
taxonomy.
>
>Also, any advice on how to train myself to recognize some of those 100's of
>see-once-in-a-while genera?  Should I focus on learning all those adjectives
>and yes/no tests?  Should I just memorize every plant in the local
>arboretum?  Are all those books with color pictures any good at
>actually teaching a person to recognize plants?
	The only way to learn plants is to play with them.  Plant them, go
look at them, talk about them.... Just remember to always check the tag for
the latin name, and use it instead of trying to remember both common and
latin names.  After a while you learn how to sort them out.
	Well, that rambled on, didn't it?  Better than writing a thesis
proposal I suppose.

Rob



From saouc@uccmvsa.bitnet Fri Jun 17 00:35:08 EDT 1994
Article: 35708 of rec.gardens
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From: saouc@uccmvsa.bitnet
Newsgroups: rec.gardens
Subject: Re: how to learn taxonomy
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 94 12:50:27 PDT
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> From: sandstro@cac.washington.edu (Bob Sandstrom)
> Subject: how to learn taxonomy
> Date: 15 Jun 1994 22:53:33 GMT
> Hi.  I'm too lazy to actually grow any interesting plants at home, so
> I'm planning to walk around a botanical garden or two this summer,
> and try to figure out something about plant taxonomy that way.  Mostly at
> the order, family, and genus level, I guess.  .   .   .
> 
> I have a question about the way taxonomy is being done by the academics
> today.  Do they occasionally reorganize orders and families,
> based on newly-discovered DNA similarity?  .   .   .   
> 
> Also, any advice on how to train myself to recognize some of those 100's 
of
> see-once-in-a-while genera?  Should I focus on learning all those 
adjectives
> and yes/no tests?  Should I just memorize every plant in the local
> arboretum?  Are all those books with color pictures any good at
> actually teaching a person to recognize plants?

Bob - 

A very practical suggestion might be to aquire a botanical reference that
lists plants by their taxonomy, rather that in an alphabetic, encyclopedic
fashion.  While this can be tiresome when trying to look up a known genus
and species (you have to use the Index each time!), I have always found it
illuminating regarding the realtionship (botanists see) between different
genera.

Years ago, I can across a worn copy of 'Manual of Cultivated Plants', by
Bailey, (1938), which is sitting on the shelf in front of me today.  I use
it regularly and find, DNA revolutions not-withstanding, it is still fairly
accurate.  Certain families tend to be controversial, especially those that
are huge and very tempting to 'spitters' in the world of botany.  But
nothing discovered on the taxonimic level ever REALLY gets a revolution
going in Horticulture - gardeners still grow chrysanthemums even though they
might not be sure if they are really ARGYRANTHEMUMs, LEUCANTHEMUMs,
DENDRANTHEMAs, TANACETUMs, MATRICARIAs, or PYRETHRUMs!  Botanists need to
battle over these classifications - this represents the advancement of our
understanding of plants.  And it can be useful in understanding horticulture
at times, so don't so it should be considered at times.

Speaking for myself, after spending the last 25years passionately interested
in plants, there are some 'family' triats you can come to recognize, even
without flowers to refer to (floral morphology is the upper level of 
taxonomic classification, regardless of what the leaf/stem might resemble).
How to teach this is difficult.  Being trained as an artist from a very
early age, and having always had a 'eye for detail', I have found much of
what I see to be sort of a 'sense' about a subject that can be difficult to
put into words.  Sort of like how a mathematician can explain all sorts of
complicated 'proofs' and 'theorems' for something that is 'just common 
sense' to a lot of us.  I have surprized myself at being able to see a
difference between two plants that my more knowledgeable friends insist are
the same.  Perhaps all eyes are not on an equal footing, but noting the
tiny details of plants is one of the best ways to appreciate their distinc-
tions.

Flipping open my Bailey 'Manual', I come to the MALVACEAE, or Mallow Family.
Now as the distinctive flower form is so recognizable to most people, I am
not surprized to find all the gang we know and love: Malva (common Mallows),
Lavathera (Bush Mallows), Althaea (Hollyhocks), Abutilon (Chinese Lanterns),
Hibiscus.  Less common genera, but clearly in this family if you are
familiar with these flowers, are Sphaeralcea, Malope, Malvastrum, Sidalcea,
Callirhoe, etc.  To see any of these, with their 5-petaled, funnel shaped
flowers with combined stamen/pistil arrangement at the center (the classic
Hibiscus flower shape), would certainly bring to mind relationships between
them.

Flipping again, I come to the POLEMONIACEAE, or Pholx Family.  Here I am a
little surprized to find some I expected: Polemonium (Jacob's Ladder),
Lobelia, Gilia (Western Natives), Collomia, and Phlox, but I had no idea
that Cobaea (the Cantebury-Bells Vine) and Cantua (some interesting and
beautiful shrubs from Chile and Bolivia that we often grow here in Calif)
were placed here!  I'll have to look at these more closely next time . . . 

       Sean A. O'Hara, 710 Jean St., Oakland, Ca. 94610-1459
            saouc@uccmvsa.bitnet or sean.ohara@ucop.edu
                                                                 



