178 BOTANICAL NAMES. [LESSON 29. 



LESSON XXIX. 



BOTANICAL NAMES AND CHARACTERS. 



511. PLANTS are classified, i. e. are marshalled under their re- 

 spective classes, orders, tribes, genera, and species, and they are 

 characterized, that is, their principal characteristics or distinguish- 



marks are described or enumerated, in order that, 

 First, their resemblances or differences, of various degrees, may 



be clearly exhibited, and all the species and kinds ranked next to 



those they are most related to ; and 



Secondly, that students may readily ascertain the botanical names 



of the plants they meet with, and learn their peculiarities, properties, 



and place in the system. 



512. It is in the latter that the young student is chiefly interested. 

 And by his studies in this regard he is gradually led up to a higher 

 point of view, from which he may take an intelligent survey of the 

 whole general system of plants. But the best way for the student 

 to learn the classification of plants (or Botany as a system), is to use 

 it, in finding out by it the name and the peculiarities of all the wild 

 plants he meets with. 



513. Names. The botanical name of a plant, that by which a 

 botanist designates it, is the name of its genus followed by that of 

 the species, The name of the genus or kind is like the family name 

 or surname of a person, as Smith, or Jones. That of the species 

 answers to the baptismal name, as John, or James. Accordingly, 

 the White Oak is called botanically Quercus alba ; the first word, or 

 Quercus, being the name of the Oak genus ; the second, alba, that 

 of this particular species. And the Red Oak is named Quercus 

 rubra ; the Black-Jack Oak, Quercus nigra ; and so on. The bo- 

 tanical names are all in Latin (or are Latinized), this being the 

 common language of science everywhere ; and according to the 

 usage of that language, and of most others, the name of the species 

 comes after that of the genus, while in English it comes before it. 



514. Generic Names. A plant, then, is named by two words. The 

 generic name, or that of the genus, is one word, and a substantive. 

 Commonly it is the old classical name, when the genus was known 

 to the Greeks and Romans ; as Quercus for the Oak, Fagus for the 



