

ulLJ ■ ■ 



SUPPLEMENT. >;;?^ 



THE FAMILIES OF FLOWERING PLANTS.* 



By ClIAHIKS LOIIS PoLLAHl). 

 INTRODUCTKW. 



A (luestion freciuently asked hy those interested in natuie and 

 nature-study is how a knowledge of plants may be obtained without 

 the expenditure of time and trouble involved in a complete course of 

 systematic and structural l)otany. It is a problem seemingly dithcult 

 of solution, l)ut one that nevertheless commands attention, since the 

 highest province of all science is the exposition of the facts of nature. 

 Critical and technical study of anv branch of biolotrv is valueless if 

 the world at large is not lo profit by the researches of the scholar. 



Many attempts have been made to meet this growing demand fo^" 

 popular botany. There are countless volumes designed to instruct the 

 layman and to give him a casual acquaintance with the flowers of tield 

 and wayside. Most of them administer, under the sugar-coated jruise 

 of popular language, a bitter pill of meaningless names and descrip- 

 tions, while the dose is often made more unpalatable by numerous and 

 wholly superfluous extracts from the poets. The folk-lore of plants is 

 a distinct l)ranch of liotan}', and a book which aims to describe the 

 plants themselves .should avoid all digressions. In an efl'ort to simplify 

 the technical language of the science, the device of classifying plants 

 by artificial methods, such as the color of their flowers, the situations 

 in which they grow, etc., has been attempted, but the unwary reader, 

 in pursuing this course, is likely to be led into snares. Color and 

 habitat are variable characteristics, and acquaintance with a given plant 

 is to be gained only by familiarity with its appearance and an under- 

 standing of its relationships. There is often a clear conception of in- 

 dividual genera, even among those who have no comprehension of how- 

 genera are grouped. Thus nearly everyone can recognize an oak tree, 

 the oaks forming a very distinct natural genus, while most persons can 



*A series of articles under the above caption was begun in the first volume 

 of The Plant World, but extended only through the more important families of 

 the Monocotyledons. The treatment at that time was necessarily very brief, and 

 in the interests of completeness it has been deemed advisible to start the series 

 anew, including- illustrations and much additional text. 



