Question

According to Bentham and Hooker, total families of real flowering plants are:
(a) 202
(b) 199
(c) 34
(d) 85

Answer 1

Hint: Bentham and hooker classification of seed plants was based on the natural affinities. The Estimated classification of flowering plants is given in the book Genera Plantarum.

Complete answer:
The British botanists George Bentham and Joseph Dalton Hooker were closely affiliated to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in England. They published The Bentham and Hooker system of taxonomic classification in the book Genera Plantarum. The General Plantarum classified an estimated 202 families.
Organisms in this system are classified based on natural affinities and consider not only external but also internal features like ultrastructure, anatomy, embryology, and phytochemistry.
This classification divided the flowering plant into three groups: Dicotyledons, Monocotyledons, and Gymnosperms. These were further divided into three subclasses of 21 series, 25 cohorts, and 202 families. Since the gymnosperms were not included as real flowering plants, after removing the 3 families of gymnosperms the total families of real flowering plants become 199.
So, the answer is, ‘202.’

Note: - Gymnosperms are not included in real families as they considered them as plants with naked ovules.
- In Genera Plantarum family was referred to as ‘ordo’, the order was referred to as ‘cohorts’, and the series refers to rank above the orders.
- In India, herbaria are arranged according to the Bentham and Hooker system of classification.