Syntaxon

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A unit used in ecological studies to classify a group of plant species that commonly occur together in a habitat
2. A category for grouping plants based on their associations in a particular ecological community
3. An organizational level in vegetation science referring to a consistent assemblage of plants found in a specific environment

Etymology: "Syntaxon" is a technical coinage from plant ecology, built from two parts. The first, "syn-," comes from Greek and means "together" or "with." The second, "taxon," is a biological term for a named group of organisms, and it comes from Greek "taxis," meaning "arrangement" or "order," from the verb "tassein," "to arrange." Put together, the word names a unit in the classification of plant communities. Ecologists use it for a group of vegetation types that share a defined set of characteristic plant species, much as a biological taxon groups organisms. Because it is a deliberate scientific formation, it has no older everyday sense; its meaning comes entirely from the system it was made to serve.