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Genera Plantarum
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<p><i>Genera Plantarum</i> is a publication of Swedish naturalist <a href="/facts/Carl_Linnaeus/gy5HWkHS">Carl Linnaeus</a> (1707–1778). The first edition was issued in <a href="/facts/Leiden/rs70mHlG">Leiden</a>, 1737. The fifth edition served as a complementary volume to <i><a href="/facts/Species_Plantarum/SKwpspkt">Species Plantarum</a></i> (1753). Article 13 of the <a href="/facts/International_Code_of_Nomenclature_for_algae%2c_fungi%2c_and_plants/EbaUF9P5">International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants</a> states that "Generic names that appear in Linnaeus' <i>Species Plantarum</i> ed. 1 (1753) and ed. 2 (1762–63) are associated with the first subsequent description given under those names in Linnaeus' <i>Genera Plantarum</i> ed. 5 (1754) and ed. 6 (1764)." This defines the starting point for nomenclature of most groups of plants. </p><p>The first edition of <i>Genera Plantarum</i> contains brief descriptions of the 935 plant genera that were known to Linnaeus at that time. It is dedicated to <a href="/facts/Herman_Boerhaave/hGUwe2G7">Herman Boerhaave</a>, a Leiden physician who introduced Linnaeus to <a href="/facts/George_Clifford_III/0klQMPhL">George Clifford</a> and the medico-botanical Dutch establishment of the day. <i>Genera Plantarum</i> employed his <a href="/facts/Linnaean_taxonomy/DLdJDy2F">“sexual system” of classification</a>, in which plants are grouped according to the number of stamens and pistils in the flower. <i>Genera Plantarum</i> was revised several times by Linnaeus, the fifth edition being published in August 1754 (eds. 3 and 4 were not edited by Linnaeus) and linked to the first edition of <i>Species Plantarum</i>. Over the 16 years that passed between the publication of the first and fifth editions the number of genera listed had increased from 935 to 1105. </p><p>Linnaeus established the system of <a href="/facts/Binomial_nomenclature/jgBqAhPv">binomial nomenclature</a> through the widespread acceptance of his list of plants in the 1753 edition of <i>Species Plantarum</i>, which is now taken as the starting point for all <a href="/facts/Botanical_nomenclature/7KmBSwV8">botanical nomenclature</a>. <i>Genera Plantarum</i> was an integral part of this first stepping stone towards a universal standardised <a href="/facts/Biological_nomenclature/UIalq4GC">biological nomenclature</a>. </p>