78o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of the different kinds of leaves, but gather as many as you can ; then, 

 by reference to the book, describe them to yourself in botanical terms, 

 and keep on in this way till you can give a scientific description of 

 any plant you see, without the book. In a few weeks you will find 

 that you have mastered, almost without knowing it, the dreadful bug- 

 bear of botanical language, and got a good deal of solid pleasure out 

 of the process to boot. 



You are now ready to take up the classification of plants, and to 

 study their habits and relationships — and this is where the real pleas- 

 ure begins. Don't worry about species at first, but be satisfied for a 

 time with referring the different plants you meet to their appropriate 

 orders and genera ; specific distinctions are often perplexing, and'can 

 be attended to later. Gray's " Manual " and Chapman's " Southern 

 Flora " are the only hand-books you will need — the latter for Southern 

 Georgia and Florida, the former for more northern latitudes. I have 

 seen Northern amateurs puzzling over Gray in Florida, and wondering 

 that they could find so few of the plants around them described there, 

 never seeming to realize that a manual of the flora of the Northern 

 States would not answer just as well for an almost tropical region, 



Florida is a specially interesting region to the botanist on ac- 

 count of the peculiar forms of plant-life to be found there. I wish 

 I had time to introduce the reader to some of my friends of the forest 

 and jungle, though I dare say he will find it more profitable to seek 

 them out for himself. Botanizing in Florida, however, has this 

 drawback : the pine-lands are so poor that, for the most interesting 

 specimens, you must go to the swamps and hummocks, at the risk of 

 getting more malaria than plants, as I can testify to my cost. But in 

 Southern Georgia there is no such danger. The soil of the pine-lands 

 there is richer, and the whole earth becomes, in spring-time, an Eden 

 of beauty and fragrance. There is no need to go into malarious 

 places ; you can hardly set your foot down anywhere without tread- 

 ing on flowers. At a place near the railroad, between Albany and 

 Thomasville, I once stood and gathered seventeen different species 

 without moving out of my tracks. The Houstonias, Atamasco lilies, 

 and jcllow jasmines, make their appearance in February, and from 

 then on till June the most diligent collector will have had as much as 

 he can do to keep up with the rich succession of plant-life constantly 

 unfolding itself to view. 



And, all the while that one is pursuing a delightful study, he is 

 getting abundant exercise in the open air, without the dreary con- 

 sciousness of exertion for exertion's sake. One can walk for hours on 

 a botanical ramble without fatigue, when twenty minutes of an aim- 

 less " constitutional " would send one home fagged out in body and 

 mind. The parlor gymnastics recommended by Mr. Youmans may 

 have their value in some cases, but for myself the most dismal mo- 

 ments I have ever spent were while laboring conscientiously with 



