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Bessey and Engler: a numerical analysis of their classification of the flowering plants
Author(s) -
Cuerrier Alain,
Barabé Denis,
Brouillet Luc
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
taxon
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.819
H-Index - 81
eISSN - 1996-8175
pISSN - 0040-0262
DOI - 10.2307/1222393
Subject(s) - taxon , supermatrix , mathematics , humanities , statistics , botany , biology , pure mathematics , philosophy , algebra over a field , current algebra , affine lie algebra
Summary Cuerrier, A., Barabé, D. & Brouillet, L.: Bessey and Engler: a numerical analysis of their classification of the flowering plants. ‐ Taxon 41: 667‐684. 1992. ‐ ISSN 0040‐0262. The classifications of Bessey and Engler were compared using the Mantel and Lapointe‐Legendre consensus tests. Even if real differences were noted in some of the dicta or principles underlying their systems, content of groups at the ordinal level was not statistically different. The main difference lies more in the hierarchical, topological structure of their classifications. Bessey's classification is less polytomous in the higher categories than Engler's. We hypothesize that Bessey was more concerned with the higher level, using a divisive approach to construct his classification, and Engler with the lower level, using an agglomerative or mixed approach. Our results show that Bessey's classification does not fully represent ‘an expression of a theory of evolution‘. Engler and Bessey appear to have used sequences of taxa to reflect their morphological progressions. The results of the numerical and historical analyses were in agreement. The former helped refining the results of the latter. Il faut commencer une étude par quelques propositions évidentes qui fixent les idées. Cela fait, en général, un travail ennuyeux; mais nous avons une grande chance: c'est que les évidences, dont il s'agit ici, ont été négligées . Jean Paulhan (1948)