Chemotaxonomy

Chemotaxonomy is the scientific approach to classifying plants on the basis of their biochemical constituents - the medicines, spices and preservatives obtained from plants first drew taxonomists' attention to this approach. Chemical characters fall into three categories: (1) easily visible characters like starch grains or silica; (2) characters detected by chemical tests, like phenolics, oils, fats and waxes; (3) proteins. Proteins, amino acids, nucleic acids and peptides are the most-studied chemicals in chemotaxonomy - proteins in particular are tightly controlled by genes and less subject to natural selection, which lets them be used at every hierarchical level from 'variety' right up to 'division'. Aims: to develo …