Cladistics.

Since the dawn of history, humans have classified plants. In primitive cultures classifications were by economic use, such as food, clothing, medicine, and shelter. Later the form (morphology) of a plant became important, for example, trees, shrubs, or herbs. Carolus Linneaus considered the similarity of floral parts to be critical, and this formed the basis of his classification system. Each of these systems is said to be “artificial.” That is, the classification was solely for a human purpose and did not attempt to indicate genetic relationships between plants. Since Charles Darwin, the goal of plant systematics has been to develop a “natural,” phylogenetic classification, one that represents the natural relationships of each species to all others. Cladistics was developed as a method to construct phylogenetic classifications.