Classification of some species, genera and families of plants by x-ray spectrometry

The Linnaean systematic classification of plants has been used for many years but eventually it caused great discord among taxonomists, since it is still based on visual inspection, without the necessary accuracy. Chemical classification methods are also applied, but are destructive and time and reagent consuming, which makes them expensive, and requiring also treatment of the liquid and solid residues. The latter are based on the determination of the proteins in a species that is not encountered in others. In the present work, a new, reliable method for the classification of vegetables without destroying samples is proposed using x-ray spectrometry combined with chemometrics, using both the PCA and HCA tools. Conventional EDXRF equipment is used to obtain the spectra and classification is achieved by processing them using multivariate analysis. Seeds of species and varieties of carnations and species of bananas were used to demonstrate the applicability of the method. Copyright (C) 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.