The genus Pinus contains many species; the family Pinaceae 

 has many genera; and the order Coniferales has a few other fami- 

 lies in addition to the Pinaceae. In practice, we are generally 

 concerned mostly with the family, genus, and species of a plant. 



At a very high taxonomic level, flowering plants are divided 

 into two groups. The Dicotyledoneae, or dicots, are those 

 flowering plants which have flower parts in 4's or 5's, vascular 

 bundles of the stem arranged in a ring-like pattern, and as the 

 name implies, they have two seed leaves or cotyledons. The Mono- 

 cotyledoneae, or monocots, have flower parts arranged in 3's, 

 scattered vascular bundles, and single seed leaves. There are 

 exceptions to almost all of the above character patterns, but 

 nevertheless the dicots and monocots are distinctive and evolu- 

 tionarily well-separated groups of plants. 



Some familiar dicots are CaHfornia Poppy (Eschscholzia 

 califomicd), meadow foam {Limnanthes spp.*), fiddleneck 

 (Amsinckia spp.), lupine (Lupinus spp.), and filaree (Erodium 

 spp.). Monocots include trillium (Trillium spp.) grasses, sedges, 

 yuccas, palms, blue-eyed grass {Sisyrinchium spp.), irises {Iris 

 spp.), lilies, and various other famiUar genera or families. 



Naming New Plant Species 



The naming of plants is done by taxonomists. Naming of 

 plants is not completely arbitrary, but must follow a series of 

 rules that are laid down in the International Code of Botanical 

 Nomenclature. The Code does not tell a taxonomist what 

 name he must give to a plant or how to determine whether a 

 species is undescribed; it simply gives him the procedure to be 

 followed in naming a plant that he beUeves is a new species. 

 Although the Code is a fairly lengthy legalistic document, it 

 contains common-sense rules and in general is a practical guide- 

 line for taxonomists. Despite the fact that the California flora 

 is rather well known, a number of new plant species are 

 described from the state each year. Some of these new species 

 have been known for many years but have been confused with 

 other closely related species. Intensive studies of the genus 



*spp. = plural of species, abbreviated. 



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