APPENDIX 
SUGGESTIONS FOR BEGINNERS 
1. The purpose of the keys is to make it possible to determine 
the name and relationship of a plant from its structure. There was 
a time when botany courses consisted almost entirely of learning to 
use a manual and collecting and identifying plants. From this there 
was a tendency to go to the other extreme and leave out identifica- 
tion work altogether. The ability to name plants is not all, but a 
legitimate part of a knowledge of botany. 
2. Each key begins with some statement and you are to deter- 
mine if this is true of your specimen. If not go at once to the co- 
ordinate statement. If it does apply to your plant you will find two 
subordinate statements indented the same amount from the margin 
and you must again determine which applies to your plant. Continue 
thus till you find a statement followed by a name, if you are using 
the general key usually it will be the name of an order. This is as 
far as this key will take you and you must turn to the page indi- 
cated and find the key to the families, after determining the family 
turn to beginning of family and find a key to genera, and finally at 
the beginning of the genus a key to the species where you will find 
the name sought. 
3. The Latin or scientific name usually consists of two parts, 
as Prunus americana or Quercus macrocarpa. The first part is the 
name of the genus to which the plant belongs, thus Prunus includes 
the plums and cherries and Quercus includes all the oaks. The sec- 
ond part or species name limits it to a single kind of plants as 
Prunus americana for our wild plum and Quercus macrocarpa for 
the bur-oak. In some cases some of the plants of a species differ 
from the rest, but are not considered different enough to constitute 
a different species, but only a variety of the species. This is indi- 
cated by adding a third part to the name, as Vicia americana linearis. 
The tendency is to raise most of the varieties of the older botanists 
to distinct species. Whether two forms shall be considered species 
or varieties is largely a matter of opinion. 
4, Except for the commoner or more conspicuous plants the com- 
mon or English names are of little value, as the same name will be 
applied to different plants in different places, and the same plant 
will be known by several different names even in the same locality. 
Many of our native plants have no common names. 
5. Genera are united into larger groups called families, and 
these in turn are grouped into orders. Orders are grouped into 
classes and these into phyla. The names of families are formed by 
adding aceae to the name of one of their genera, as the rose family 
from Rosa is called Rosacezx, and the names of orders by adding ales 
to a generic name, as Rosales for the order including the rose family 
and some related families. 
6. The classification of flowering plants is based largely on the 
structure of the flowers, they are consequently referred to more 
ee avently in the keys than other parts of the plant. A typical 
