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Page 72 · DO #4666 · 231_Rogers_Bx2FF27_r
- Collection
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David James Rogers (1918–2007) papers
- Item/Folder
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Taximetrics Course - Student Reports, 1966–1968
- Digital Object
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DO #4666,
page 72
- Collection-level dates
- 1948–1977
Page transcription
His connection with plants therefore was with a different set of plant materials than he would have found occurring in the temperate parts of Europe. So either Linnaeus' or Tournefort's systems of classification sort of fell flat on their face as when he wanted to make a classification of the plants that he found in the tropics. So when he discovered his that his classification system had to be something different, I can't imagine what background he had, it would be interesting as a historical study to know how Adanson was backed up with ideas from other people. We don't have that available to us now, so we just have to assume that he started from scratch with no other ideas behind him. But basically the idea that Adanson had was that any piece of information that you can get from the plant could be used or might be useful in the classification thereof. It didn't matter whether you were looking at the root, stem, leaf, or some part of the reproductive structures, that if there were pieces of information available from them, you should attempt to use that information in making a classification. What he did for himself was to take one piece of information or one character. For example he might of taken the same sorts of characters that Anderson used here, or let us say that he was interested in pubescence. He would try to make a classification of his plants purely on the basis of that character, one character. Then he would take another character of the plant and it might be something about the flowers. Let us say he had a differentiation on the number of stamens in the flower. He would make a classification based upon the stamens, differentiations that he could find. This would be a separate classification from the one that he made on the basis of pubescence. And he would go through and make classifications based on several characters simultaneously. Then he would go back and try to put these classifications together and see where he got the most content of information. Now this is an ideal idea and, of course, you can see immediately how this is going to get you into