Systematic botany

Systematic botany is the science that deals with establishing kinship relationships between plants based on their characters (for example, morphology, anatomy, physiology, DNA structure, etc.). The discipline encompasses taxonomy (which orders plants in a system of classification of plant organisms), phylogenetic classification, and the evolution of plant organisms.

Modern systematics is not only based on the external morphology of the plant, it also considers the anatomical constitution, its genetic characters, its ecology, its geographical distribution, its ancestors... to try to form a system according to the true affinities of plants, that is, the degree of kinship that exists between the various groups of plants.

Current systematic trends integrate phytopaleontology in order to group plants according to their true affinities.

Currently systematic botanists are divided into two main tendencies, on the one hand there are those who continue to use the traditional methods of biological classification, while on the other hand there are cladistic methods.