Classification. xliii 



esculentus. This system of grouping and nomenclature was 

 invented by the great Linnaeus. 



The genera, which number about 6000, had next to be 

 divided into families or orders. Linnaeus made his orders 

 depend on the number and other peculiarities of the organs of 

 generation, i.e. the stamens and pistils ; but this arrangement, 

 which is certainly the easiest for beginners, and therefore pro- 

 bably the most suitable when botanical classification was a new 

 science, has now been generally abandoned. The system of 

 division into orders now universally adopted takes into account 

 all resemblances and differences, especially those of the flower 

 and fruit, valuing them according to their evident or presumed 

 importance, and is therefore called the natural system. These 

 special characters of the orders are sometimes obvious to the 

 common observer, as in the case of the carrot and the parsnip, 

 or between the common pea and gram, the near relationship 

 between which any one could see ; sometimes they are simi- 

 larities which cannot be recognized without botanical knowledge, 

 as in the case of the potato plant and the tobacco plant, which, 

 though so different in appearance, belong to the same order. 



The natural orders have been further grouped into great 

 divisions or classes, and all the classes brought into one of 

 the two sub-kingdoms of flowering and flowerless plants. 



Thus the general Flora of the world has been built up and 

 classified by the learned, who have examined all the plants that 

 are. It is the reverse process that we have to do with, and 

 anyone wishing to identify any particular plant must work 

 downwards from the greater to the lesser divisions. So it is 

 necessary here to give short descriptions of the classes and 

 orders in which the plants of Western India are found, the 

 genera and species being described in the body of the book, 

 with further particulars as to the orders. 



The following are the classes into which plants are divided 

 according to Bentham and Hooker's " Genera Plantarum," on 

 which Hooker's " Flora of British India " is founded. 



The first great division is into Dicotyledons and Mono- 

 cotyledons, otherwise called Exogens and Endogens (the names 

 which will be used in this book), under one or other of 

 which denominations all flowering plants come. Dicotyle- 

 dons are those whose seeds when the skin is removed separate 



