MPSC 2023 Prelims Paper-I · Question 67 of 100

Correct — option (3). Read the stem twice before doing anything else, because this is a negative question: 'Find the wrong pair' asks for the item that fails, so the three pairs you can vouch for must be set aside and the one that does not hold is the answer. Nothing in the printing marks the word 'wrong' out. Note also what this question is not — it is not a two-column matching item. Each of the four numbered options is already a complete pair of botanical family names joined by a dash, and the task is only to judge each printed pair as it stands. What the pairs are doing is placing an old descriptive family name beside its modern equivalent. Botanical nomenclature standardised family names on the pattern of a type genus plus the ending -aceae, but eight long-established names that do not follow that pattern were in such general use that the International Code of Nomenclature expressly permits them to continue as alternatives. Those eight equivalences are Palmae and Arecaceae, Gramineae and Poaceae, Cruciferae and Brassicaceae, Leguminosae and Fabaceae, Guttiferae and Clusiaceae, Umbelliferae and Apiaceae, Compositae and Asteraceae, and Labiatae and Lamiaceae — a closed list of exactly eight, which is what makes it examinable. Checking the options against it, option (1) Labiatae–Lamiaceae is right, option (2) Palmae–Arecaceae is right, and option (4) Umbelliferae–Apiaceae is right. Option (3) pairs Compositae with Clusiaceae, and both halves belong to the list but not to each other. Compositae, the family of the sunflower, the marigold and the safflower, named for the composite flower head in which many small florets sit together on a common receptacle, is equivalent to Asteraceae, the name built from the genus Aster. Clusiaceae, built from the genus Clusia, is the modern name not of Compositae but of Guttiferae, a quite different family which includes Garcinia and to which kokum belongs. The pair as printed therefore joins the old name of one family to the new name of another, and it is the wrong pair the question is asking for. Option (3) is the answer.

• (1)Labiatae – Lamiaceae — This pair is correct, so it cannot be the answer to a question that asks for the wrong pair. Labiatae and Lamiaceae are two names for the same family, the mint family, and each name is formed on a different principle. Labiatae is the older descriptive name and refers to the lipped, two-lobed corolla characteristic of the family, from the Latin for lip; Lamiaceae is the standardised name built from the type genus Lamium. The family includes mint, tulsi, lavender, sage and rosemary, and its members are widely recognised by their square stems and aromatic leaves. Both names remain valid and either may be used, which is precisely the point the question is testing — that these are alternatives for one family and not the names of two families.
• (2)Palmae – Arecaceae — This pair is correct and is not the answer. Palmae and Arecaceae are two names for the palm family, Palmae being the old descriptive name and Arecaceae the standardised form built from the genus Areca, which gives the areca nut. The family includes the coconut, the date palm, the oil palm and the palmyra, and is of substantial economic importance in the coastal districts of Maharashtra as elsewhere along the Indian coast. As with the other three pairs on the page, both names refer to the same family and both are permitted under the international code; the pair would only fail if one of the two names belonged to some other family, which is exactly the defect in option (3).
• (4)Umbelliferae – Apiaceae — This pair is correct and is not the answer. Umbelliferae and Apiaceae name the same family, the one that includes coriander, cumin, fennel, carrot, celery and asafoetida. Umbelliferae is the descriptive name and refers to the umbel, the inflorescence in which the flower stalks all arise from a single point and spread like the ribs of an umbrella; Apiaceae is the standardised name built from the genus Apium, the celery genus. This pair is worth learning together with option (3), because both old names describe an inflorescence — the umbel in one case and the composite head in the other — and a candidate who fixes each descriptive name to the feature it names is far less likely to attach it to the wrong modern equivalent under time pressure.

Family names in botany are normally formed from the name of an included genus, the type genus, with the ending -aceae substituted for the genitive ending — Rosaceae from Rosa, Solanaceae from Solanum, Asteraceae from Aster. Before that convention was settled, several large and familiar families had acquired names describing a conspicuous character of the group instead, and because those names were entrenched in the literature the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi and plants allows eight of them to remain in use as alternatives to the standardised forms. The eight are Palmae for Arecaceae, Gramineae for Poaceae, Cruciferae for Brassicaceae, Leguminosae for Fabaceae, Guttiferae for Clusiaceae, Umbelliferae for Apiaceae, Compositae for Asteraceae and Labiatae for Lamiaceae; Papilionaceae is permitted in a related way for the subfamily of Fabaceae. Each old name records the character it was coined for: Gramineae the grasses, Cruciferae the four petals set in a cross, Leguminosae the legume pod, Umbelliferae the umbel, Compositae the composite head of florets, Labiatae the lipped corolla, Guttiferae the drops of resin the plants exude. Each modern name records instead a genus: Poa, Brassica, Faba, Apium, Aster, Lamium, Clusia, Areca. The families themselves are among the most important in the flora and in agriculture — Poaceae supplies the cereals, Fabaceae the pulses and the nitrogen-fixing legumes, Brassicaceae the mustards and crucifer vegetables, Asteraceae is one of the two largest families of flowering plants alongside Orchidaceae, and Apiaceae supplies a large share of the spice crops.

Two things make this a characteristic MPSC item. The first is its negative direction: the stem asks for the wrong pair, and this paper carries seven such stems with the negating word printed in ordinary type, so nothing on the page warns the reader. A candidate who reads at speed and answers the question the options seem to be asking — which pair is right — will find three defensible answers and no way to choose, and the time lost recovering from that is often worse than the mark. The procedure that survives is to note the direction of the stem in the margin before looking at any option. The second is the shape of the knowledge being tested. The eight permitted alternative family names are a closed list, short enough to be learnt in an afternoon and specific enough that a question can be built from it in seconds, which is why examiners return to it. The Commission's method of building a wrong option from a closed list is almost always the cross-pair: take two correct equivalences and swap half of one into the other, so that both names in the false pair are genuine and familiar and only their combination is wrong. Recognising each name individually is therefore no defence at all, and the pairing itself has to be known. Note that this is not a matching question despite appearances — each printed option is already a formed pair, and no column has to be matched against another.

• The International Code of Nomenclature permits eight long-established descriptive family names as alternatives to the standardised -aceae forms: Palmae/Arecaceae, Gramineae/Poaceae, Cruciferae/Brassicaceae, Leguminosae/Fabaceae, Guttiferae/Clusiaceae, Umbelliferae/Apiaceae, Compositae/Asteraceae and Labiatae/Lamiaceae.
• Compositae is the alternative name of Asteraceae and not of Clusiaceae, which is why the pair printed in option (3) fails; Clusiaceae is the modern equivalent of Guttiferae, an entirely different family.
• The old family names are descriptive of a character — the umbel of Umbelliferae, the composite flower head of Compositae, the lipped corolla of Labiatae, the four cross-set petals of Cruciferae — while the modern names are each built from a type genus such as Apium, Aster, Lamium or Brassica.
• Asteraceae, the family of the sunflower, marigold and safflower, is distinguished by the capitulum, an inflorescence in which numerous small florets are crowded onto a common receptacle so that the whole head resembles a single flower.
• Clusiaceae, formerly Guttiferae, includes the genus Garcinia, to which kokum, Garcinia indica, belongs — a fruit of economic importance in the Konkan region of Maharashtra.

• Missing the negative direction of the stem and hunting for a correct pair, which is how this format is most often failed since nothing in the printing marks the word 'wrong'
• Treating an option as correct because both names in it are familiar, when the Commission builds its wrong option by swapping halves between two genuine pairs
• Confusing Compositae with Clusiaceae because both begin with the same letter, when the modern equivalent of Compositae is Asteraceae and Clusiaceae belongs with Guttiferae
• Reading a set of dash-joined options as a matching question and attempting to re-pair them, when each printed option is already a complete pair to be judged as it stands
• Learning the alternative family names as two separate lists of eight, which leaves a candidate able to recognise every name and unable to say which goes with which

Botanical nomenclature reaches MPSC papers through a narrow and stable set of items: identify the family of a named crop or plant, pair old family names with their modern equivalents as here, name the type genus a family name is built from, or identify a family from a diagnostic character such as its inflorescence. Because the list of permitted alternative names is closed at eight, the Commission can only construct a wrong option by cross-pairing within that list, which means the whole family of questions is defeated by learning the eight equivalences as pairs. The negative variant used here — find the wrong pair — is the Commission's preferred form because it forces the candidate to verify all four items rather than to recognise one, and it appears across subjects in this paper, not only in botany. Related items ask for the family of an economically important crop, and the crops chosen usually have a Maharashtra connection, so the families of sugarcane, cotton, groundnut, turmeric, mango and kokum are worth holding.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Compositae is the alternative name of which of the following plant families ?

  • (a)Apiaceae
  • (b)Asteraceae
  • (c)Clusiaceae
  • (d)Brassicaceae

  Answer(b) Asteraceae — Compositae is the old descriptive name of the family, coined from the composite flower head in which many small florets are crowded onto a common receptacle, and Asteraceae is the standardised name built from the type genus Aster. Apiaceae is the modern name of Umbelliferae, Clusiaceae of Guttiferae and Brassicaceae of Cruciferae, so all four options name real families and only the pairing distinguishes them.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which of the following old family names is correctly matched with the character it was coined from ?

  • (a)Cruciferae – pod-like fruit
  • (b)Umbelliferae – lipped corolla
  • (c)Labiatae – four petals set in a cross
  • (d)Gramineae – the grasses

  Answer(d) Gramineae – the grasses — the name comes from the Latin for grass and belongs to the family now standardised as Poaceae. The other three options have had their characters swapped: Cruciferae is named for its four petals set in the form of a cross, Umbelliferae for its umbel inflorescence, and Labiatae for the two-lipped corolla of the mint family. Each old name records a visible feature of the family, which is why they can be reconstructed rather than merely memorised.