In this lesson, you will be taking a look at some features that have been used in the past to classify plants.
Theophrastus lived after Aristotle in the 3rd century BCE. He, like Aristotle, classified living things by careful observation of structural features. The diagram below is a key for the classification system devised by Theophrastus.
Theophrastus's plant classification key
Did you notice that this is a slightly different way to write a key? But it is not difficult to read.
Once again, start at the top of the key at plants . Then you make careful observations of your plant to answer the questions at each step.
Bougainvillea
For example, how would you classify bougainvillea? Is there a stem ? Yes. Is there only one stem ? No. Therefore, bougainvillea is an undershrub.
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