BOTANY FOR BEGINNERS II. 



By Willard N. Cluti; 



T N the popular mind the pursuit of botany is so indissokibly 

 •*• connected with the study of flowers that these struc- 

 tures are often assumed to be the only parts of the plants of 

 any real significance. The beginner is always astonished 

 when he discovers that many of the formal courses in school 

 and college do not mention the flowers at all. He may even 

 wonder what there is left to study if the blossoms are elim- 

 inated ; certainly these are the parts that make any plant worth 

 while to him. Indeed, the word flower in his vocabulary is 

 often extended t(» include the whole plant, and he speaks of 

 cultivating his flowers when there may be no blossoms in 

 sight. 



It is a comparatively new idea that the production of 

 flowers for ornament is not the end and aim of the plants 

 existence. In the long ago, it was universally believed that 

 flowers existed solely for the delectation of mankind. It never 

 occured to those early observers to wonder why the lines and 

 spots that so often ornament the interior of tubular blossoms 

 were not on the outside if they were designed to be seen and 

 admired by human beings. Nearly everybody, nowadavs is 

 aware that flowers have been envolved without any thought 

 of pleasing that- species which rather boastfully styles itself 

 the Lord of Creation. That their beauty and fragrance hap- 

 pen to please man is merely so much his good fortune. 



The bees and butterflies discovered what those lines and 



