CHAPTER XXXVII. 



CLASSIFICATION (OR TAXONOMY). 



374. Species. It is not necessary for one to be a botanist in 

 order to recognize, during a stroll in the woods where the 

 trillium is flowering, that 

 there are many individual 

 plants very like each 

 other. They may vary 

 in size, and the parts may 

 differ a little in form. 

 When the flowers first 

 open they are usually 

 white, and in age they 

 generally become pinkish. In some 

 individuals they are pinkish when they 

 first open. Even with these variations, 

 which are trifling in comparison with 

 the points of close agreement, we 

 recognize the individuals to be of the 

 same kind, just as we 

 recognize the corn plants 

 grown from the seed of 

 an ear of corn as of the 

 same kind. Individuals 

 of the same kind, in this sense, form a 

 wake-robin, then, is a species. 



But there are other trilliums which differ greatly from this 

 one. The purple trillium (T. erectum) shown in fig. 202 is very 



231 



Fig. 202. 

 Trillium erec- 

 tum(purple form), 

 two plants from 

 one root-stock. 



species. The white 



