Question

Which class has been placed in between dicotyledons and monocotyledons by Bentham and Hooker?
A) Leptosporangiate
B) Eusporangiate
C) Gymnospermae
D) Hepaticopsida

Answer 1

Hint: Bentham and Hooker were british botanists who proposed a classification system for plants. Their classification system is pre Darwinian and so does not take into account evolutionary characteristics. It is based mainly on natural characters of different species.

Complete Answer:
- The first and the most important one being that gymnosperms were placed in between dicots and monocots, the artificial characters were not considered properly, plants with related orders were separated to a great extent from one another and there was no uniformity in the arrangement of groups at all. Hence this system of classification was rejected at a later stage.
- This system of classification consists of the following groups- class dicotyledons, class gymnospermae and class monocotyledons. This classification system was published in the book called Genera Plantarum.
- This type of classification system had few advantages like- it was simple and easily understandable, all the genus and species were identified from actual specimens and monocots followed dicots. But there were also many disadvantages associated with this system of classification.

So the correct option is C) Gymnospermae.

Note: Classification systems are of great importance as they help group not only plants but also other organisms according to similar features. But choosing a correct classification system is equally important otherwise it leads to misunderstanding and may lead to results that are not correct. So during studying classification systems these should be kept in mind as well.