GENUS AND SPECIES. 47 



a good deal of difference between them. The 

 furze, with its large soft yellow flowers and 

 woody branches, sharp with spines, is another butter- 

 fly plant, but it shows a still greater difference. 

 Because of these differences between plants of the 

 same natural order, they are arranged in smaller 

 divisions, each of which is called a genus. I am 

 afraid this word genus sounds rather strange to you, 

 but try and remember it. It will help you to do- so, 

 if you think of it as meaning a family division. 



So in the natural order of butterfly plants you 

 have the furze family, the clover family, and many 

 others. In the same way, amongst the umbel- 

 bearers there is the carrot family, the earth-nut 

 family, and many more. In like manner all the 

 natural orders are divided into families or genera, 

 which is the plural of genus. Two of the commonest 

 plants, the daisy and the dandelion will help you to 

 remember this. 



Take a daisy, pull off one of its white outside 

 petals, and you will see something which looks soft 

 and downy at the end of it. It is a pistil, and the 

 white petal with its pistil is a flower, though not a 

 perfect one. But look at the middle of the daisy. 

 It is a bunch of yellow flowers. If they were mag- 

 nified, their beautiful yellow corollas would remind 

 you of the yellow crocus. Inside each of them you 

 would see the stamens and pistil. So the daisy flower 

 is made up of many little yellow flowers surrounded 

 by little white ones. Each of them is without a green 



