182 HOW TO STUDY PLANTS. [LESSON 30. 



dies), or divided by a sharp knife. Such a microscope is not neces- 

 sary, except for very small flowers ; but it is a great convenience at 

 all times, and is indispensable in studying the more difficult sorts of 

 plants.* 



524. To express clearly the distinctions which botanists observe, 

 and which furnish the best marks to know a plant by, requires a good 

 many technical terms, or words used with a precise meaning. These, 

 as they are met with, the student should look out in the Glossary 

 (p. 103). The terms in common use are not so numerous as they 

 would at first appear to be. With practice they will soon be- 

 come so familiar as to give very little trouble. And the application 

 of botanical descriptive language to the plants themselves, indicating 

 all their varieties of form and structure, is an excellent discipline for 

 the mind, equal, if not in some respects superior, to that of learning 

 a classical language. 



525. Analysis Of a Plant, For the first trial we may as well take 

 a Buttercup. Some species or other may be found in blossom at 

 almost any part of the season, and, except in early spring, the fruit, 

 mftre or less matured, may be gathered with the flowers. For a 

 full knowledge of a plant the fruit is essential, although the name 

 may generally be ascertained without it. 



526. We wish to refer the plant first to its proper class and order, 

 and then to its genus and species. The orders are so numerous, and 

 so generally distinguishable only by a combination of a considerable 

 number of marks, that the young student must find his way to them 

 by means of an Artificial Key. With the plant in hand, let the 

 student turn to page xvii of the introductory part of the Manual, 

 on which this artificial key to the natural orders commences. 



527. It opens with " Series I. PH^ENOGAMOUS or FLOAVEKING- 

 PLANTS"; to which, as it has r<-: % l fowers and produces seeds, 

 our plant plainly enough belongs. Uiiuer this are two classes. 



528. We read the characters (520) or distinctive marks of Class I. 

 DICOTYLEDONOUS or EXOGENOUS PLANTS. This class, we per- 

 ceive, is known by its stem, by its leaves, by its embryo, and by the 

 number of parts in the plan of the flower. The easiest of these for 

 the 3 T oung student to determine it by, is that of the leaves, which 

 in this class are netted-veined (140). So they plainly are in the 



* A very pood instrument of the kind, in its simplest form, is furnished by 

 Messrs. J. & W. Grunow, opticians, of New Haven, Connecticut, for ten dollars. 



