36 
Journal of Mycology 
LVol. 11 
in exactly the same sense by different botanists. They are to be 
regarded as tentative terms — indispensable at present but will 
undoubtedly be inadequate if not quite incorrect when botanical 
science is more fully developed. 
Race, Strain, Clone. —Though a brief treatise on Mycology 
scarcely demands the explanation of any other classification terms 
than those given above, yet it may be well to elucidate three other 
subordinate groups, namely, “Race,” “Strain,” and “Clone” — 
terms which have their chief use in connection with Agriculture 
and Horticulture and refer to groups in cultivation. By Races 
we indicate those which have not only well marked and differen¬ 
tiating characters but which propagate themselves true to seed, 
though slight individual variations would of course be expected. 
Strains include groups of cultivated plants that do no differ in 
appearance or botanical characters from a “Race” but exhibit 
some distinctive quality — it may be greater hardiness or adapt¬ 
ability, greater yield, etc. It is a vague distinction at best, and 
however important in practice, apparently of no botanical or sci¬ 
entific value. But the term “Clone” (from the Greek Klon y twig, 
spray or slip) indicates those plants that are propagated vegeta- 
tively, as by buds, grafts, cuttings, suckers, runners, slips, bulbs, 
tubers, etc. — all of which imply the handling of higher plants 
exclusively, but any vegetative method of multiplying a desirable 
species of Mushroom, for example, would likewise come under 
this head; these would not come true to seed. They are in fact 
the “individuals” obtained by “multiplying” a sport, or the single 
plant from which the first cutting or portion was obtained. The 
important fact to bear in mind is that the plants grown from such 
vegetative parts are not individuals in the ordinary sense, but are 
“transplanted” parts of the same individual and “in heredity, and 
in all biological and physiological senses such plants are the same 
individual.” 
Genus, Family, Order, Class. —As has been intimated the 
species (composed of individuals that are alike) is the convenient 
biological unit in the classification of organisms. It is the group 
first or most readily grasped, and therefore the most satisfactory 
starting point in a discussion of this subject. Going into the 
fields or woods the individual plants even on cursory examina¬ 
tion would unhesitatingly be referred to the various species to 
which they evidently and really belong. It would also be per¬ 
ceived at once that some sets of species were much alike and 
others quite unlike. The several species, for example, of Red 
Oaks, of Black Oaks, of White Oaks, of Bur Oaks, etc., would be 
associated in mind, and the Willows, the Hickories, the Mints, the 
Mushrooms, etc., likewise would be readily grouped according to 
their natural affinities. The species first referred to would form 
the genus of Oaks ( Quercus ), and in like manner we would have 
the genus of Willows ( Salix ), the genus of Hickories ( Hicoria ), 
