dentation

A rather unusual type of scalloped dentation lends additional interest.

In looking over a large collection of specimens in a museum, the most distinctive characters appear at first to be the colours, the dentation or barbed condition of the carina, the row of square marks on the scuta and terga, and the more or less produced form of the whole capitulum: all these characters are absolutely worthless as distinctive characters, and blend into each other.

For the species of plants are usually characterised either by differences in the form, size, and colour of the flowers, or of the fruits; or, by peculiarities in the shape, size, dentation, or arrangement of the leaves; or by peculiarities in the spines, hairs, or down with which various parts of the plant are clothed.