A taxonomist's view on genomic authentication

A brief history of taxonomy, for the most part plant oriented, is provided, which demonstrates the use of morphology early on, through the stages when different technologies became available at different times until the present use of genomic tools. Genomic authentication facilitates with greater precision than ever before the identification of an organism or part thereof. In this chapter I made an attempt to stress that, in general, but more so for genomic authentication, the use of the variation inherent in taxa down to the lowest level of the hierarchy of classification needs to be used to achieve a high degree of correct authentication.