Question

Merit of Bentham and Hooker’s system is
A) Placement of renales in beginning
B) Placement of orchidaceae in microspermae
C) Placement of asteraceae in beginning of gamopetalae
D) Position of gymnospermae in between dicots and monocots

Answer 1

Hint:Bentham and Hooker system is a taxonomic system for classifying seeded plants. This system is based on the natural affinities and does not depend on evolution theory. This system came before the system of binomial nomenclature.

Complete Answer:
>This theory was put forward by George Bentham and Joseph Hooker. They classified the plants into 97,205 species and into 202 families and 7,569 Genres in their book called Genera Plantarum which was published in three volumes.
>This system came up before the binomial nomenclature system. In this system the family is represented by “ordo” and an order is represented by “cohors”. “Series” is the rank above order.
>In the first class of Dicotyledones, series I Thalamiflorae, Renales were placed in Cohors 1 as Renales are the primitive living angiosperms.
>Orchidaceae was placed in the series Microspermae. Since it is an advanced family and placed in lower order is the demerit of this system.
>Gymnospermae was placed in between monocots and dicots. As gymnosperm is primitive compared to monocots and dicots, it is considered as a demerit.

Thus the correct answer is (A). Merit of Bentham and Hooker’s system is that Renales were placed at the beginning.

Note: Bentham and Hooker’s system of classification is still followed in herbaria of the world. It recorded the precise description of most of the plants present during that time. It is considered as the best system to identify plants in the laboratory.