134 GENERAL BOTANY 



seeds of Flax or Wheat or Cotton or Paddy, only 

 Flax, Wheat, Cotton or Paddy, as the case may be, 

 will come up. No one has ever raised Cholam from 

 Paddy seed, nor Barley from Wheat, nor even Jowari 

 cotton plants from Karunganni cotton seed. 



Since every plant has sprung (by seed or directly) 

 from another more or less like it, all those of any one 

 kind must be related to each other, and have descended, 

 through perhaps a long past, from one common, or 

 several very similar, ancestors. Such a group (or kind) 

 of plants, all the members of which resemble each 

 other in the more important respects of flowers, general 

 habit and leaves, looking therefore as if all had come 

 from a common ancestor, is termed a species. 



Coco-nut-palms, for instance, all belong to one species 

 the Coco-nut species known botanically as COCOS 

 NUCIFERA. (We shall see shortly why the name is 

 a double one the second half is the species' own special 

 name). Palmyra-palms belong to another species known 

 as BORASSUS FLABELLIFER. The common Indian 

 Date-palms to another, PHOENIX SYLVESTRIS. All 

 Banyan trees belong to one species called FICUS 

 BENGALENSIS. All Peepul trees to another, FICUS 

 RELIGIOSA. 



Now we do not find any species of plant growing 

 wild all over the world. Some grow only in the 

 eastern hemisphere, others only in the western, some 

 are found in the tropics, others only in temperate 

 climates. Coco-nut-palms, for instance, grow quite 

 commonly on the shores of the tropical parts of 

 America, Africa, and Asia, and on all the islands of 

 Malay Archipelago, and the Coral islands of the Pacific, 



