Scientific Classification
Classification is grouping together similar things. It is something that you have done in your daily life since you were a child. There are many different ways to classify organisms. There are aquatic and terrestrial animals. Certain plants can be grouped together as either trees or shrubs according to their outward appearance. Using these methods is useful for some purposes. Generally it is more useful to classify organisms in accordance with their relationships with one another. More to the point the systems discussed today are the ones used universally and based upon Carolus Linnaeus' original work. Carolus Linnaeus is probably the single most dominant figure in systematic classification. Born in 1707, he had a mind that was orderly to the extreme. People sent him plants from all over the world, and he would devise a way to relate them. At the age of thirty-two he was the author of fourteen botanical works. His two most famous were Genera Plantarum, developing an artificial sexual system, and Species Plantarum, a famous work where he named and classified every plant known to him, and for the first time gave each plant a binomial. This binomial system was a vast improvement over some of the old descriptive names for plants used formerly. Before Linnaeus, Catnip was known as: "Nepeta floribus interrupte spicatis pedunculatis" which is a brief description of the plant. Linnaeus named it Nepeta cataria--cataria meaning, "pertaining to cats". The binomial nomenclature is not only more precise and standardized; it also relates plants together, thus adding much interest and information in the name. For instance, Solanum relates the potato, the tomato and the Nightshade.
Binomial Classification Early on in naming species taxonomists realized that there would have to be a universal system of nomenclature. Why? For example, it would seem to be a lot less complicated to just give a species a vernacular name that is easy to pronounce. Let's...
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