What is a Plant Species?
Generally speaking, plants of separate species are unable to interbreed. A species is also a group of plants that can be readily distinguished from other plants based on physical appearance but, because plants are so variable, species can be broken down into subspecies and varieties, because sometimes plants that look different can actually interbreed. Binomial nomenclature refers to the two part name of each species. The first part of the name is the name of the genus and the second part is a modifier of the genus name that indicates the species. Toxicadendron is a genus name and can be used by itself to indicate a member of the Toxicadendron genus or can be used in combination with diversilobum to indicate the particular species within that genus. Diversilobum is only a modifier and is not informative by itself. There is only one genus called Toxicadendron but the species modifier diversilobum can occur in many genera.
