BI 330/630

Fall 1999

PLANT SYSTEMATICS

Texts:

• Walters, D. R. and D. J. Keil. 1996. Vascular Plant Taxonomy, Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, Dubuque, IA.
• Newcomb, Lawrence. 1977. Newcomb's Wildflower Guide. Little, Brown, and Co.
• Petrides, George A. 1986. A Field Guide to Trees and Shrubs, 2nd edition. Houghton Mifflin Co.

Grading:

Modern systematics (including taxonomy) serves as a unifying force in biology as data are utilized from a multitude of disciplines including biochemistry, genetics, physiology, morphology, and paleontology to develop classifications. Systematic botany, then, deals with the identification and naming of plants and with their arrangement into groups of closely related organisms, such as genera, families, or orders. It includes all activities that are part of the effort to organize and record the diversity of plants. The present course will be organized to present two major themes:

1. the identification and nomenclature of plants based on the Pennsylvania flora (primarily through laboratory experience)
2. the demonstration of the evolutionary and ecological implications of plant diversity (through lecture and reading materials).

GENERAL OUTLINE

LECTURE	LABORATORY
Botanical terminology	Use of keys, herbarium
Sources of taxonomic evidence	Field trips
Origin and classification of	Monocots
Speciation process	Dicots
Evolution of vascular plants -- survey of orders	Phyletics/Cladistics
Biosystematics and evolution
Nomenclature rules