CHAPTER X 



SYSTEMATIC BOTANY 



IN the early days of the science nearly every botanist's 

 energies were devoted to that branch of it which we 

 now call systematic botany. This is very natural, for the 

 first stage in the attack on a mass of unknown things 

 is to arrange and name them for ready reference. Lin- 

 naeus was the first to bring some order out of the chaos, 

 and to give all plants known to him names on a uniform 

 system. He instituted the present binominal nomen- 

 clature, in which every species has a generic name 

 (corresponding to a surname) and a specific name 

 (corresponding to a baptismal name) in the form of an 

 adjective, either in Latin or latinised modern language. 

 In making the genera and arranging them in families 

 attention is only paid to the floral organs, and plants 

 are classified according to the number and position 

 of the parts that make their flowers, cones, or spore- 

 bearing organs. In a genus itself, however, the differ- 

 ent species are of ten t distinguished by some vegetative 

 characters, such as the hairiness or shape of the leaves 

 or the habit of the stems. 



Species when named had to be described so that other 

 workers should not give the same plant another name, 

 and, as it has always been very difficult to describe in 

 words the minute details of any object, these descrip- 

 tions were found to be very much mor^ serviceable 

 when accompanied with a drawing or figure of the 



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