NAMES OF PLANTS. 17 



For instance, you often see in green-houses a great 

 many different sorts of Geranium; these Gera- 

 niums form a genus of plants, and each different 

 sort is a species of that genus; so that when you 

 hear a person say, an Ivy-leaved Geranium, a 

 Rose-scented Geranium, or a Butterfly Geranium 

 you know that they all belong to the Genus Gera- 

 nium, and that the Ivy-leaved, &c. are the different 

 species. 



In distinguishing plants, two words are always 

 employed by Botanists ; the first, which is applied 

 to all the species of the same genus, is called the 

 Generic name; but the second is confined to a 

 single species only, and is called the Specific, or 

 Trivial, name. This mode of naming plants is so 

 much approved of, that it is universally used, even 

 by those botanists who arrange them in a different 

 manner from Linnaeus. The two names thus em- 

 ployed are understood in every part of the world, 

 by those who study Botany, but the common names 

 are different in different countries. If you were to 

 talk of Wall-flower, or Stock-Gilliflower, to a 

 French or German Botanist, he would not under- 

 stand you, nor would you know what he meant 

 by the French or German names of those plants, 

 though very abundant in his own country; but the 

 names Cheiran'thus fruticulo'sus, and Cheiran'thus 

 sinua'tus would immediately signify to him that 

 you were speaking of two different species of the 

 c 



