Question

The scientist(s) who gave an artificial system of classification is/are
(a) Joseph Dalton Hooker
(b) George Bentham
(c) Linnaeus
(d) Engler and Pranti

Answer 1

Hint: He was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, and a physician whose manuscript was published in 1735 with the title “Systema Naturae”. A new system of classification of plants was described by him in this manuscript.

Complete step-by-step answer:
In the artificial system of classification, the organisms are grouped into different groups based on one or more non-evolutionary and morphological features. For example, in this system, plants are classified according to the number and position of stigmas, style, and stamens present in their flowers. This system was developed by the “Father of Systematic Botany” Carolus Linnaeus. This was mainly based on floral features and characters of stamens were chiefly used in this. He proposed it as a convenient system of classification of plants and presented it in two publications – Species Plantarum and Genera Plantarum.

Additional information :
Carolus Linnaeus was the first to introduce a system of classification to make the study of organisms easier. Though this classification was not much successful, at that time other scientists got a basic idea about classifying organisms and it was supported and accepted by many taxonomists of that time.
This system provided a quick and easy method for classifying plants based on one or a few floral characters. More classification systems were developed with time and for all those new systems, the classification system given by Linnaeus served as a reference work.

So, the correct answer is ‘Linnaeus’.

Note: The system is not widely used due to following drawbacks –
1. It considered only a few characters
2. Phylogenetic relationships were not considered
3. Provided only limited information about plants classified
4. It was difficult to specify a particular species or genera
The natural system of classification was later developed by Bentham and Hooker which found to be more successful than the artificial system because it considered phylogenetic relationships among the organisms.