Classification of indoor plants

You can tell about the variety of colors in different ways: either list everything in alphabetical order, or break up into one or another group and characterize each of them separately. Groups can also be formed according to different principles. For example, quite often they are united by the so-called biological taxa: department, type, order, family. .. Of course, for a botanist this principle will be the most convenient, it is not accidental that it is used in special plant determinants. But does every amateur florist know botany so well that it's easy to understand, in the list of representatives of which order( especially families) to search for a characteristic of the flower of interest? Meanwhile, plants from the same family can be so different from each other both in form and in accordance with the requirements for the conditions of detention that it is illogical to place them in a single group.

You can sort plants by climatic zones, but what if the origin of the flower is not known?

The most convenient way, perhaps, will be to address one of the traditional divisions of houseplants and consider the assortment in the following groups: ornamental, flowering, decorative and separately - cacti and other succulents( they are easy to learn and the search field narrows).Well, inside the groups you can arrange the names in alphabetical order.

Another question: is it worthwhile to give here a description of plants? Is there not enough one name and a list of the peculiarities of cultivation of this flower and care for it? Perhaps, all the same it is worth. Even in good stores, labels are sometimes confused, and you can actually get at all wrong( precedents are available).Familiar lovers are not always experts. The author had to meet the florists, who for some reason cissus called begonia, and asparagus pinnate - fern. Clearly, you can detect external similarity, but it does not follow from this that asparagus will be well the same as the fern. So, just in case, when buying an unfamiliar plant, all the same, compare it with the description.

For some plants, the recommendations may seem too short, but it is not accidental: this book details only the most specific features specific to this plant. For example, if the "propagation" point indicates "cuttings-

mi" without any comments, it's enough to look into the appropriate chapter, in this case - "Plant breeding".But if there are any non-standard advice or special notes, they refer only to the specified species( like "rooted in the sand", "for rooting needs phytohormones" and so on).If it is specially noted that the flower is undemanding, it means that when it grows, deviations from the recommended optimal conditions are allowed, but it should be remembered: the plant is a living being, and one can not consciously turn a full life into a miserable existence. But the beginner florist with flowers marked as unpretentious, will be calmer: their stamina will help to buy time to correct mistakes made.

Determine where and why to place this or that flower, it is better in advance, before its acquisition or immediately in the store( in most cases you will be prompted how to take care of it), but it is not superfluous for a beginner florist to first attach to the potsoriginal "passports", where it would be noted from which climatic zone the plant occurs, as well as its light and moisture resistance and necessarily - a period of rest. In this there is nothing shameful: even specialists who have a lot of plants sometimes get such "passports": after all, it's impossible to keep everything in your memory.

And now - a little bit about the morphology of plants.

Shoots.

Shoots are not just stems. Escape is the single organ of the plant, a complex system consisting of the stem( axis), leaves and kidneys. Tubers, bulbs and inflorescences are considered special forms of shoots;rudimentary, undeveloped shoot is considered a kidney. An important characteristic of an unmodified shoot is the presence of nodes, that is, the parts of the stem at the level of the leaves or whorls of the leaves or their buds. A section of the stalk between neighboring nodes is called an interstitial site.

Shoots can be of the first order( formed by the first shoot, which in many plants becomes the main stem, and in the trees by the trunk), of the second order( directly departing from the main shoot), of the third

order( departing from the second order shoots respectively), the fourthetc.

Leaves.

The sheet, as a rule, consists of the upper broad and flat part - the plate and the stalk bottom - the petiole. If the petiole is not present, and the plate is attached directly to the stem, then such leaves are called sedentary.

The location of the leaves on the shoot can be: 1) spiral.- on each site there is one sheet, and if you mentally connect their bases, you get a spiral;2) whorled - when the leaves grow as if from one knot;3) opposite - the name speaks for itself, in this case the leaves are arranged in pairs exactly against each other. There is also a two-row leaf arrangement.

It looks like this:

The plants differ from each other in the shape of the leaves. Leaves can be simple and complex. Prsotymi are called leaves with one leaf blade. If the plates on the petiole are several, then they are complex leaves that are divided into palchatosyllabic, pinnate or triadic. And there are also binary, and two- or multi-folded leaves.

Sheet plate can be integral or dissected into blades, lobes or segments, in their voices there are again such parts of a complex word as triad, palchato and peristome. The bladed type of dismemberment is when the recesses occupy less than half the width of the half-plate, the separate type is deeper than half the width of the half-plate, and the dissected one to the base. The main thing is not to confuse the latter type with complex leaves. They have their exact names and different kinds of edge of the sheet.

In order to make the description very accurate, it is necessary to sort out the basic forms of the leaves! To do this, see the table below. However, in addition to these forms, there are also other: heart-shaped, round-hearted, spatulate, thyroid, ovate-triangular, bud-like, arrow-shaped and spear-shaped. You can imagine how they look: the names are very eloquent. It is only necessary to clarify the difference between the swept and spear-shaped leaves: in the latter, the angles facing downward are also directed to the side, while the outer contour of the swept sheet forms a fairly distinct triangle.

Flowers and inflorescences.

The variety of flowers and inflorescences in different plants is immediately evident. First of all, the corollas of flowering plants are noticeable, they are the ones that delight the eye. They can

be correct( petals of the same shape and size), irregular - zygomorphic( as in the "pansies") and even quite asymmetrical( as in the lion's pharynx, for example).

Flowers can be single, but often form so-called inflorescences, characteristic of specific plant species, which, in turn, can be simple and complex.

Among the simple inflorescences are the following:

Complex inflorescences are formed from a few simple ones. For example, a complex umbrella consists of simple umbrellas, a complex ear - from smaller spikelets, a panicle - from several brushes, differing with more abundant branching( as in a lilac).

Fruits.

The fruits of angiosperms are primarily divided into juicy and dry, although there are also so-called false fruits. False - for botanists, because, in their opinion, they are not from those parts of the flower that the rest of the fruit. To the false include and strawberries, and dogrose, and an apple. Just remember, just in case( not to be lost when you see this term in the literature) is the name.

Juicy fruits come in two varieties: drupe and berry, they differ among themselves by the number of seeds( ossicles).The first include fruits with one stone( like a cherry).And berries, by definition of botanists, is everything where there are two or more bones. Even very small bones, like blueberries or bananas. Another berry is, for example, a tomato. The main thing - remember that this is not about everyday everyday definition of the word "berry".

Dry fruits can actually exist in a dry form directly on the plant. Dry beans include beans( peas, beans), pods( if the seeds are attached to the inner plate), capsules( poppy seeds), nuts( not only the nuts we know, but all the fruits with a hard shell and one seed, these are acorns and nutslindens), grains( in cereals), sunflower seeds, winged( maple) and others. Sometimes fruits form copulation( beet, mulberry).