Editing Monocotyledon (section)

==== Pre-Linnean ====
[[File:Ray-Malpighi cotyledon.jpg|thumb|Illustrations of [[cotyledons]] by [[John Ray]] 1682, after [[Marcello Malpighi|Malpighi]]]]
Monocots were first recognized as a group in [[Matthias de l'Obel]]'s [[Matthias de l'Obel#Stirpium adversaria nova (1570-71)|''Stirpium adversaria nova'']]. Searching for non-pharmacological characteristics to classify plants by, he chose on [[leaf]] form and [[Leaf#Venation|venation]], and observed that the majority of plants had broad leaves with net-like venation, but some had long and straight leaves with parallel veins.<ref name=ObelStirp65/> He did not decide on any formal name for the two groups he discovered, and his new classification scheme did not receive much appraisal and only saw moderate success within academic circles.{{sfn|Vines|1913|loc=p.&nbsp;10}}{{sfn|Hoeniger|Hoeniger|1969}}<ref name=pavordN.339/><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Houtzager |first1=HL |date=27 November 1976 |title=Matthias Lobelius, 16e eeuwse kruidkundige en geneesheer |trans-title=Mathias Lobelius, 16th century herbalist and physician |url=https://www.ntvg.nl/system/files/publications/1976121100001a.pdf |journal=[[Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde]] |language=nl |volume=120 |issue=4– |pages=2110–3 |pmid=796733}}</ref>

Formal description dates from [[John Ray]]'s studies of [[seed]] structure in the 17th century. Ray, who is often considered the first botanical [[systematist]],{{sfn|Pavord|2005}} observed the [[dichotomy]] of [[cotyledon]] structure in his examination of seeds. He reported his findings in a paper read to the [[Royal Society]] on 17 December 1674, entitled "A Discourse on the Seeds of Plants".{{sfn|Chase|2004}}
{{Quotebox|title=''A Discourse on the Seeds of Plants''|align=center| salign=right|quote= <poem>The greatest number of plants that come of seed spring at first out of the earth with two leaves which being for the most part of a different figure from the succeeding leaves are by our gardeners not improperly called the seed leaves...  <br/>In the first kind the seed leaves are nothing but the two lobes of the seed having their plain sides clapt together like the two halves of a walnut and therefore are of the just figure of the seed slit in sunder flat wise...<br/>Of seeds that spring out of the earth with leaves like the succeeding and no seed leaves I have observed two sorts. 1. Such as are congenerous to the first kind precedent that is whose pulp is divided into two lobes and a radicle... <br/>2. Such which neither spring out of the ground with seed leaves nor have their pulp divided into lobes </poem>|source= John Ray (1674), pp.&nbsp;164, 166{{sfn|Ray|1674|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=o2EVAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA164 pp.&nbsp;164, 166]}}}} Since this paper appeared a year before the publication of [[Malpighi]]'s ''Anatome Plantarum'' (1675–1679), Ray has the priority. At the time, Ray did not fully realise the importance of his discovery{{sfn|Raven|1950}} but progressively developed this over successive publications. And since these were in Latin, "seed leaves" became ''folia seminalia''{{sfn|Ray|1682|loc=[https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/84226#page/35/mode/1up ''De foliis plantarum seminalibus dictis'' p.&nbsp;7]}} and then ''cotyledon'', following [[Malpighi]].{{sfn|Short|George|2013|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=dFcKLxqEAj4C&pg=PA15 p.&nbsp;15]}}{{sfn|Ray|1682|loc=[https://archive.org/stream/methodusplantaru00rayj#page/12/mode/2up ''De plantula seminali reliquisque femine contentis'' p.&nbsp;13]}} Malpighi and Ray were familiar with each other's work,{{sfn|Raven|1950}} and Malpighi in describing the same structures had introduced the term cotyledon,{{sfn|Malpighi|1679|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=nSEOAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA18 ''De seminum vegetatione'' p.&nbsp;18]}} which Ray adopted in his subsequent writing.
{{Quotebox|title=''De seminum vegetatione''|align=center| salign=right|quote= <poem>''Mense quoque Maii, alias seminales plantulas Fabarum, & Phaseolorum, ablatis pariter binis seminalibus foliis, seu cotyledonibus, incubandas posui''<br/>In the month of May, also, I incubated two seed plants, [[Vicia faba|Faba]] and [[Phaseolus]], after removing the two seed leaves, or cotyledons</poem>|source= Marcello Malpighi (1679), p.&nbsp;18{{sfn|Malpighi|1679|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=nSEOAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA18 ''De seminum vegetatione'' p.&nbsp;18]}}}} In this experiment, Malpighi also showed that the cotyledons were critical to the development of the plant, proof that Ray required for his theory.{{sfn|Bewley|Black|Halmer|2006|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=aE414KuXu4gC&pg=PA334 History of seed research p.&nbsp;334]}} In his ''Methodus plantarum nova''{{sfn|Ray|1682}} Ray also developed and justified the "natural" or pre-evolutionary approach to classification, based on characteristics selected ''[[a posteriori]]'' in order to group together taxa that have the greatest number of shared characteristics. This approach, also referred to as polythetic would last till [[evolutionary theory]] enabled [[Eichler system|Eichler]] to develop the [[phyletic]] system that superseded it in the late nineteenth century, based on an understanding of the acquisition of characteristics.{{sfn|Stuessy|2009|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=b9Q2EOkw7toC&pg=PA47 Natural classification p.&nbsp;47]}}{{sfn|Datta|1988|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=X7lfMACvjs4C&pg=PA21 Systems of classification p.&nbsp;21]}}{{sfn|Stace|1989|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=VfQnuwh3bw8C&pg=PA19 The development of plant taxonomy p.&nbsp;17]}} He also made the crucial observation ''Ex hac seminum divisione sumum potest generalis plantarum distinctio, eaque meo judicio omnium prima et longe optima, in eas sci. quae plantula seminali sunt bifolia aut διλόβω, et quae plantula sem. adulta analoga.'' (From this division of the seeds derives a general distinction amongst plants, that in my judgement is first and by far the best, into those seed plants which are bifoliate, or bilobed, and those that are analogous to the adult), that is between monocots and dicots.{{sfn|Raven|1950|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=ETusSTe5O8YC&pg=PA195 p.&nbsp;195]}}{{sfn|Bewley|Black|Halmer|2006|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=aE414KuXu4gC&pg=PA334 History of seed research p.&nbsp;334]}} He illustrated this by quoting from Malpighi and including reproductions of Malpighi's drawings of cotyledons (see figure).{{sfn|Ray|1682|loc=[https://archive.org/stream/methodusplantaru00rayj#page/n39/mode/2up ''De foliis plantarum seminalibus dictis'' p.&nbsp;11]}} Initially Ray did not develop a classification of flowering plants (florifera) based on a division by the number of cotyledons, but developed his ideas over successive publications,{{sfn|Ray|1696}} coining the terms ''Monocotyledones'' and ''Dicotyledones'' in 1703,{{sfn|Ray|1703|loc=[https://archive.org/stream/joannisrajisocie00rayj#page/n39/mode/2up pp.&nbsp;1–2]}} in the revised version of his ''Methodus'' (''Methodus plantarum emendata''), as a primary method for dividing them, ''Herbae floriferae, dividi possunt, ut diximus, in Monocotyledones & Dicotyledones'' (Flowering plants, can be divided, as we have said, into Monocotyledons & Dicotyledons).{{sfn|Ray|1703|loc=[https://archive.org/stream/joannisrajisocie00rayj#page/16/mode/2up p.&nbsp;16]}}