DEFINITIONS. 



THE following definitions are taken mainly from the " Indian Flora," 

 but with many omissions, additions, and alterations. 



1. " The plant includes, in its botanical sense, every being which has 

 vegetable life, from the loftiest tree to the humblest moss, and ex- 

 tends even further, to the mould or fungus which attacks our provisions 

 and the green scum which floats on our ponds." Putting aside these 

 lower forms of vegetation, we have to do only with flowering (or 

 phanerogamous) plants, which are divided into herbs, shrubs, and 

 trees. 



2. Herbs are those plants of which the whole or nearly the whole 

 dies down after flowering. Of these annuals are those which spring 

 up from seed, bloom, ripen their seed, and die within twelve months. 

 Biennials spring up and produce leaves the first year, but do not 

 produce flower or seed till the second, and then die. Perennials, 

 springing up like the last in the first year, produce neither flower nor 

 fruit till the third year at the earliest, and then live on for an uncer- 

 tain period. Biennials and perennials have a woody stock and root, 

 which live through one and several winters respectively. 



3. Shrubs have a perennial woody portion, branching near the base, 

 which forms the greater part of the plant, from which the flowering 

 branches shoot out each year. Undershrubs are smaller, and the 

 flowering branches form a larger proportion of the whole plant. 



4. Trees, besides being larger than shrubs, have a distinct woody 

 trunk, scarcely branching from the base. 



But note, that the same botanical species may be an annual or 

 perennial, a herbaceous perennial or an undershrub, an undershrub 

 or a shrub, a shrub or a tree, according to climate, treatment, or 

 variety. 



5. Another classification of plants is into terrestrial, aquatic, or 

 parasitical, according as they grow on earth, as by far the greater 

 part do, in water, or on other plants. Epiphytes are distinguished 

 from parasites by growing on the surface of other plants without 

 deriving sustenance from them. 



6. Trees or shrubs are called deciduous when they get and lose 

 their leaves at a particular time of the year, evergreen when they 

 remain clothed with leaves throughout the year. 



7. The parts of plants which every one can recognize are the root, 

 stem, leaves, flowers, and fruit. But the varieties of these, and the 

 different parts of which they are made up, and their forms, require a 

 good deal of explanation. 



