| taxon: | the general term for any systematic category: Domain Eukaryota Kingdom Plantae Division/Phylum -phyta Class -ae Order -ales Family -aceae Genus + specific-epithet = Binomial Subspecies Variety, etc. |
| incertae sedis: | of uncertain position
|
| biosystematics: | study of variation and evolution at the species and infraspecific taxa |
| classification: | assignment of plants to groups within a hierarchy of ranks based on structure, origins, and other characteristics |
| nomenclature: | a system of names for the various taxa, especially including the species binomial |
| phylogeny: | a reconstruction of evolutionary genealogy, descent from common ancestors |
| phylosystematics: | study of phylogeny and classification at taxa of genus and above
|
| apomorphic: | derived character states |
| autapomorphic: | character states exclusive to a particular taxon |
| plesiomorphic: | old, patristic, or primitive character states |
| synapomorphic: | shared derived character states
|
| polarity: | the understood direction from plesiomorphic state to apomorphic state often determined by stratigraphy (fossil analysis), ontogeny (recapitulates phylogeny), out-group comparison, etc.
|
| parsimony: | the simplest explanation, the shortest cladogram, the fewest steps in evolution, fewest homoplasies |
| homoplasy: | independent evolution of identical character states |
| convergence: | evolution of superficially similar features in unrelated taxa |
| parallelism: | evolution of similar features in related taxa |
| reversal: | loss of an apomorphic state, often reverting to a plesiomorphic state
|
| anagenesis: | divergence (growth) of branches in phylogeny |
| cladogenesis: | formation of branches in phylogeny
|
| cladistics: | a method used to determine branching patterns in phylogeny involving study of synapomorphic character states |
| phenetics: | a method used to determine natural relationships based on similarity of unweighted characters; numerical taxonomy
|
| cladogram: | a tree diagram expressing a hypothesis about branching in phylogeny |
| dendrogram: | a tree-like diagram consisting of node and internodes |
| phylogram: | a tree diagram expressing a hypothesis about branching and anagenesis in phylogeny
|
| holophyletic=clade: | all descendants from a common ancestor |
| monophyletic: | descended from a single ancestor (natural assemblage) |
| paraphyletic: | ancestral taxa |
| polyphyletic: | a group having several different ancestors (unnatural assemblage) |
This page © Ross E. Koning 1994.
The CBE citation style for this page would be: Koning, Ross E. 1994. "Taxonomy Vocabulary". Plant Physiology Website. http://koning.ecsu.ctstateu.edu/plant_biology/taxonvocab.html (your visit date).
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