CHAPTER XXII 
THE CLASSIFICATION OF ‘PLANTS? 
255. Natural Groups of Plants. — One does not need 
to be a botanist in order to recognize the fact that plants 
naturally fall into groups which resemble each other pretty 
closely, that these groups may be combined into larger ones 
the members of which’are somewhat alike, and so on. For 
example, all buttercups belong to the same division or genus. 
The marsh marigold, the hepatica, the rue anemone, and 
the anemone all have a family resemblance to buttercups, 
and the various anemones by themselves form another group 
like that of the buttercups. 
256. Genus and Species. — Such a group as that of the 
buttercups is called a genus (plural genera), while the vari- 
ous kinds of buttercups of which it is composed are called 
species. The scientific name of a plant is that of the genus 
followed by that of the species. The generic name begins 
with a capital, the specific does not unless it is a substan- 
tive. After the name comes the abbreviation for the name 
of the botanist who is authority for it; thus the common 
elder is Sambucus canadensis, L. L. standing for Linneus. 
Familiar examples of genera are the Violet genus, the Rose 
genus, the Clover genus, the Golden-rod genus, the Oak 
_ 1 See Warming-Mébius’s Handbuch der systematischen Botanik, Born- 
treger, Berlin; Strasburger, Noll, Schenk, and Karsten’s Text-Book of Botany, 
Part IJ, Macmillan, New York; or Engler’s Syllabus der Pflanzenfamilien, 
Engelmann, Leipzig. 
207 
