18 



CLASSIFICATION OF PLANTS. 



middle-sized. Most fruit trees are considered low trees; trees between 

 thirty and fifty feet are middle-sized ; and those of greater height large. 



72. Shrubs are either large, as when they exceed twenty feet; small, 

 if under four feet ; or undershruhs if under two feet, such as the Thyme 

 and Rosemary, and many Heaths. Shrubs climb by twining, as exemplified 

 in the Honeysuckle ; by clasping with tendrils or leaves, as in the Vine, the 

 Five-leaved Ivy, and the Clematis ; or by elongation, as in the iycium and 

 5olanum Dulcamara ; or by attachment of the rootlets, as m the common Ivy. 

 Shrubs are also distinguished as trailers, when the shoots lie along the ground 

 without rooting into it ; as stoloniferous, when the shoots ramble along the 

 ground, and root into it at certain distances, as in the Bramble ; as creeping, 

 when they root at every joint, as in some species of i2hus; and as recum- 

 bent, when the shoots recline without spreading or rooting, as in many 

 species of Cytisus. 



73. Herbaceous plants may also be similarly divided. 



With reference to their habits, plants are called alpines, hill, or moun- 

 tain plants, marsh, aquatic, bog, heath, wood, copse, hedge, meadow, and 

 pasture plants. With respect to soil, a very common division is into peat- 

 earth plants or American border plants (from the soil for American plants 

 being generally peat), and common garden soil plants. 



Herbaceous plants are also distinguished as florists' flowers, such as the 

 Auricula, Tulip, Hyacinth, &c., \vhich have been long cultivated by florists, 

 who have laid down canons or rules, by which the merits of flowers are to be 

 tested ; border flowers, or such as are adapted for growing in a miscellaneous 

 ornamental border ; botanic plants, or such as are chiefly interesting to 

 botanists ; shrubbery flowers, or such large coarse-growing species as are 

 adapted for growing among shrubs ; rockwork plants, or such as from their 

 native habitation, and low compact habit of growth, are considered as adapted 

 for rockwork ; and pot plants, or such as for the same qualities are adapted 

 for growing in pots. There are also lawn plants, or such as are adapted for 

 growing singly on a lawn, as the Peony ; and covering plants, such as the 

 rerbena Melindres^ which are adapted for covering beds and parterres wdth 

 masses of flowers of the same colour. The common divisions of herbaceous 

 plants into annual, biennial, perennial, bulbous, tuberous, ramose-rooted, 

 and fibrous-rooted, it is unnecessary here to describe, 



74. The uses of plants have given rise to several divisions ; such as horti- 

 cultural plants, agricultural, culinary, medicinal, tinctorial, pomological and 

 other plants bearing edible fruit; graniferous, pasturage, and herbage 

 plants ; hedge plants, or such ligneous species as are adapted for growing as 

 hedges ; copsewood plants, or such as shoot up freely from the stool or collar 

 when cut down, and are consequently adapted for copsewoods ; seaside plants, 

 or such as are adapted for standing the sea-breeze, &c. 



75. Plants are also distinguished as having variegated foliage ; or anoma- 

 lous foliage, in which plants having naturally simple or entire leaves, exhibit 

 them occasionally much divided, as in the Fern-leaved Beech, Cut-leaved 

 Lime, &c. ; as having double flowers, which, in the earlier ages of gardening, 

 was considered the greatest beauty which a plant could have ; as being 

 dwarfs, and lower than the normal size; or tall, and higher than the 

 normal size. Considered with reference to climate, plants are described as 

 hardy, growing in the open air without protection ; half-hardy, requiring 

 some kind of protection ; frame, requiring the protection of gla^s without 



