The Compleat Botanica follows the nomenclatural assignments of Reveal for the classification of families into the higher ranks of family, order, class and division. Some genera are also assigned to sub-families, tribes, and sub-tribes, however the full research into this will take many more years to complete and thus the current hierarchy is only partially representative of these ranks.

The assignment of genera to families has followed the publication of the Royal Botanical Garden at Kew except where Reveal has superceded this.

The assignment of species, sub-species, and varieties follows the publication by the USDA-NRCS.

Numerous corrections to the taxonomy have been made since the Build 85 release of the Compleat Botanica. You can obtain these corrections and apply them to existing databases by following the instructions in Technical Bulletin #10.