66 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN. 



everything that he recognizes as a plant. The second has 

 acquired more manual dexterity. *' A plant " means more 

 to him. His eyes are opened to much in nature that would 

 otherwise have escaped him ; but I doubt if he will find 

 more enjoyment in the pursuit of botany after leaving col- 

 lege than the first. He distinguishes a phaenogara from a 

 cryptogam, an alga from a fungus, a schizophyte from one 

 of the Saccharomycetes, by scientific characters ; but when 

 he gets into the world, he cannot identify the lower plants 

 for want of a microscope and adequate books; nor, often, 

 the higher plants for want of ability to use the better books 

 at his command. 



With a love for microscopic work, and a prejudice in 

 favor of the latter method, I confess to a suspicion that if 

 either must be accepted, to the rejection of the other, the 

 old course, with certain modifications, is the better for a 

 mixed class of beginning students. The nature of these 

 modifications is a subject for study. Besides those features 

 of structure which arc essential to their correct identifica- 

 tion, there is much of interest that can be learned from an 

 examination of our commonest wild flowers and weeds, even 

 without resorting to the microscope. 



In the brief course of evening lectures to which this is 

 preparatory, I shall endeavor to show what a wonderful in- 

 terdependence there is between plants and certain animals, 

 chiefly insects ; and how influential these despised creatures 

 have been in adorning the most beautiful and fragrant 

 flowers with the charms for which we prize them most. The 

 behavior of seedlings during germination, the ways in which 

 some plants climb to the light over the trunks of their more 

 robust neighbors, and the curious habit of others of prey- 

 ing upon insects, are easily studied. These have been 

 called Darwinian subjects. They have occupied the atten- 

 tion of the great naturalist, but they are within the reach 

 of any person with good powers of observation, and tend 

 to strengthen these powers. 



