4 PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. [parti. 



a family. In many cases the resemblance which 

 the plants in each order bear to each other is 

 sufficiently strong to enable the student to re- 

 cognise them^at first sight ; in the same manner 

 as you may generally know a Frenchman or a 

 German from an Englishman, even before you 

 hear him speak. But unfortunately this general 

 outward resemblance does not always exist, and 

 it is necessary for the student to become ac- 

 quainted with the general construction of flowers 

 before the points of resemblance which have 

 occasioned certain genera to be linked together 

 to form orders, can be understood. 



It is thus evident that the first step towards 

 a knowledge of systematic botany is to study 

 flowers thoroughl}^ and few objects of study 

 can be more interesting, whether we regard 

 the elegance of their forms or the beauty and 

 brilliancy of their colours. My readers may 

 perhaps, however, be as much surprised as I was, 

 to learn that the beautifully coloured parts of 

 flowers are the least important; and that, as they 

 only serve as a covering to the stamens and 

 pistil, which are designed for the production of 

 seedj they may be, and indeed actually are, 

 wanting in a great many of what ^re considered 

 perfect flowers. In examining a flower, there- 

 fore, it must be remembered that the produc- 

 tion of seed is the object, for which all the curi- 



