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| prickly pear cactus |
As every basic biology class explains, scientific names were created to organize communication about plants and animals. In the 1500s and 1600s, Europeans spread out over the globe and brought back all kinds of unknown organisms. By the early 18th century, they had chaos--lots of organisms and no system of organization.
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| morning glory, Padre Island, Texas |
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| morning glory Happy Grove, Jamaic |
Here’s a purple-flowered morning glory from the beach in from Jamaica and in Texas. Same or different?
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| yarrow, Boulder Colorado |
Yarrow from Narvik, Norway and Boulder, Colorado. Same or different?
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| yarrow, Narvik Norway |
Linnaeus set up a hierarchical system: groups are made of subgroups made of more subgroups. It was logical and mostly it worked. His hierarchy was Kingdom, Phylum for animals/ Division for plants, Class, Order, Family, Genus and Species.
