BRITISH FLOWERING PLANTS 



In order to distinguish one plant from another, 

 and that they may easily be spoken of, and identi- 

 fied without any doubt or difficulty, the great 

 Swedish botanist Linne, or Linnaeus, who lived in 

 the eighteenth century, improving on the work of 

 his predecessors, established an arrangement by 

 which every animal and plant (for he was a 

 zoologist as well as a botanist) is known by two 

 names — the Genus and the Species. These are 

 thrown into a Latin form, and in most cases the 

 generic name is derived from Greek and the 

 specific name from Latin. These names are 

 known and recognised all over the world ; so that, 

 no matter in what country we are, or what language 

 is spoken there, every botanist will immediately 

 know, if we speak of Quercus robur, that we mean 

 one particular species of Oak-tree. Many English 

 names of animals and plants have been applied to 



very different species in different parts of the 

 country, or at different periods, or in different 

 countries ; while, even when this is not the case, 

 popular names are frequently wrongly translated in 

 the best dictionaries. Thus, to take an extreme 

 instance, a robin in England means a small brown 

 bird with a red breast ; in America it means a 

 much larger bird, which is really a kind of thrush. 

 But if the Latin names are used, no confusion 

 is possible. 



The generic name is placed first {Quercus, for 

 instance), and this is applied to all trees which 

 possess a certain number of characters in common. 

 Thus it corresponds to a surname, except in 

 position. The specific name {robur) indicates 

 one particular kind of Oak-tree, and corresponds 

 (collectively) to a Christian name. 



The genera are grouped together in larger 



