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CULTIVATION AND ANALYSIS OF PLANTS. 



musk in the adjective form, or musky, denotes the characteristic distinction of the Species. 

 Hence it is not strictly correct to say that such a name corresponds to that of an indi- 

 vidual, as Publius Cornelius Scipio; but it would be allowable to compare it with Cor- 

 nelius Scipio — Cornelius, the gens, or clan, and Scipio, the family name within the clan — 

 if, like the Romans, we lived in a state of society where these constituted a recognized 

 division of the community. The Variety is further distinguished by one or more addi- 

 tional epithets, adjectives or names of persons, subjoined to the name of the Species to 

 which it belongs, as the Fragai'ia Virginiana Illinoensis — the Illinois Variety of the Spe- 

 cies of Strawberry known as the Virginian. 



What these various terms imply will now be explained more in detail, taking for this 

 purpose the foregoing divisions, as used by most modern writers on floriculture, and in an 

 inverse ordei", beginning with the most restricted: * 



Variety. — By this term is meant such a group within the same Species as is marked in 

 all its individuals by some striking peculiarities, and often so as to create a doubt whether 

 it does not constitute a distinct Species. 



Subspecies, or Race. — Where the marks of the Variety are regularly propagated. 



Species is an aggregate of such individual j^lants, or varieties of plants, as agree 

 in common attributes and characteristics, and which aic designated by the same distin- 

 guishing epithet, as the Rosa moschata, already explained. 



The Species of plants have been esilnuted, ami pn.liably within bounds, as high as 

 one hundred and twenty thousand, of which nearly four thousand belong to our own 

 country, east of the Mississippi. The more conserwative estimates of earlier botanists, 

 putting the number at about sixty thousand, will therefore have to be abandoned; the 

 moi-e, as new discoveries are being perpetually made. 



Subgenus, or Section, is used by some botanists to denote such collections of certain 

 Species as are more nearly allied to each other than the other plants of the same Genus. 



Genus. — This embraces all the various Species that bear a strong resemblance to 

 each other, hut diflfer in the shape or general pro]3ortion of their parts; thus the various 

 Species of the Roses belong to one Genus. 



Tribe and Subtribe are subdivisions of the Suborder in some elaborate systems of 

 classification. 



Suborder. — For convenience of treatment, and because of important differences, an 

 Order is often subdivided into three or four Sul)cjr(lers, each embracing several Genera, as, 

 for instance, the Order Rosacea into the Almond or IMum, the Pear, and the Rose proper. 



Order comprehends many Genera broadly resembling one another, as in having 

 their flowers and seeds constructed on the same plan, but with very striking differences in 

 important features. Thus the Order Rosacea, or Rose family, embraces not only Roses 

 proper, but .Strawberries, Blackberries, Apples, Pears, etc. 



Subclass, or Alliance, is a subdivision of the Class, and embraces several Orders. 



Class. — This is a still broader grouping or aggregation of plants, comprising \arious 

 Orders that resemble each other in some few important features. 



Series, or Subkingdom, is the first grand division of the vegetable kingdom, and 

 embraces all such classes as are not radically so very different as to refuse to be grouped 

 together because of their most essential properties, such as flowering or not flowering. 



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