Question

What is the difference between species and genus?

Answer 1

Hint:Nomenclature is the process of giving names to the plants. Species is the basic unit of taxonomic units whereas genus comes after it. The scientific name of a plant consists of two names ie., species and genus. Genus being the first word starts with a capital letter and the second or species name with a small letter.

Complete answer:
Classification is not a single step process but it is a hierarchy of steps in which each step is a rank or a category. Since a category is a part of overall taxonomic arrangement it is called a taxonomic category and all categories together constitute the taxonomic hierarchy. Each category, referred to as a unit of classification, in fact, represents a rank and is commonly termed as taxon.
According to the binomial system of nomenclature every plant is given a scientific name which has two parts:
(I) The name of the genus or the generic name.
(II) The name of the species or the specific name.
SPECIES- It is the basic unit of taxonomic studies. It is a group of plants that resemble each other in all major respects so that they look similar. They are similar in their external characteristics, having similar reproductive parts and are taken as descendants from a common ancestor.
GENUS- A group of species having a close resemblance to one another in their morphological characters or reproductive or floral parts is called a genus. Different species of a genus differ from each other in their vegetative characters like habit, size, form, texture,etc and yet all of them closely resemble one another in their reproductive characters such as inflorescence, flower etc.
Difference between Species and Genus:

Species	Genus
A species is the simplest unit of classification.	A genus is a principal taxonomic classification which ranks below family and above species.
It is composed of subspecies.	It is composed of different species.
It consists of fewer organisms.	It contains a large number of species.
It is the first part of the name of binomial nomenclature of an organism.	It is the second part of the name of an organism.
It is a higher classification than species.	It is the fundamental level of classification of organisms.

Note:
The binomial nomenclature was introduced by Linnaeus. The generic name is common to all the species of a particular genus, because they all show common features of resemblance with one another while the specific name is based on the certain definite and specific characters which differentiate individuals of a particular genus from one another. This method is universally accepted by botanists till now.