M. V. Lomonosov State University, Vorob'evy Gory, Moscow 119899. Moscow

Abstract

A new approach in systematics, so-called genosystematics, was formed recently thanks to rapiddevelopment of molecular biology. The methods of genosystematics widely applied in botanicalinvestigations allow to study the evolution of plant taxa of any level. Specialists in genosystematicscomparing the structure of genes and other parts of nuclear DNA and plant organelles study the genotypeevolution while the traditional approach deals with phenotype. Today data received by genosystematicmethods are very fragmental but they provide principally new information about plant evolution. Theresults of genosystematics do not always agree with that of traditional systematics partly because of thedifference in the object of study, i.e. genotype or phenotype. The author, using the recent advances ingenosystematics, analyses the reason of this discrepancy and estimates the possibilities given bygenosystematics to revise the current taxonomical systems of plants.