Question

Explain Bentham and Hooker’s classification up to class level. Write its lay out, important characters. Write its merit and demerits.

Answer 1

Bentham and Hooker’s System of Classification :

• George Bentham, a self-trained British Botanist and Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (England), proposed a natural system of classification in their book Genera Plantarum, which includes three volumes containing the description of all known genera of seed plants in Latin.
• First volume of this book was published in 1862 and last volume in 1883.
• This system of classification, which is clearly derived from the systems of de Jussieu and de Candolle, is the best and most accepted natural system and is still used and followed in several herbaria of the world, including India.
• De Candolle kept Gymnosperms with Dicotyledons while Bentham and Hooker system of classification divided all the Phanerograms or seed plants into Dicotyledons, Gymnosperms and Monocotyledons, with Ranales placed in the beginning of the classification and grasses at the end.
• They kept Gymnosperms in between Dicotyledons and Moncotyledons.
• Bentham and Hooker’s classified seeded plants or Phanerogames into three classes on the basis of morphological characters, phyllotaxy, venation, floral whorls-ca-lyx, corolla, androecium, gynoecium, seed coat and number of cotyledons in plants. Dicotyledons, Gymnosperm and Monocotyledons