2 FIBST STEPS IX BOTANY. 



need of a teacher, how different it is, both in make and stature, from 

 oaks and poplars. What all people thus do partially and vaguely, the 

 botanist does minutely and completely. He in%-estigates the precise 

 nature of the differences between plant and plant, and, finding these 

 out, is enabled to discriminate the several kinds with accuracy, then 

 to name and classify them, and ascertain how many sorts there really 

 are. For although, when we look at plants in the mass, they seem 



diversified without end, 



'• Beyond the power 



Of botanist to number up their tribes," 



it is not so in reality. It is known to within a dozen how many kinds 

 of wild-flowers grow in England, how many in France, how many in 

 Italy, — how many in every country that has been diligently and skil- 

 fully explored ; and in course of time the whole vegetable offspring of 

 our planet will no doubt be reckoned up, and an account of it be 

 printed. The work is already half accomplished. 



To learn how to distinguish plants, and to identify those we have 

 seen before, and to qualify oui'selves to give the reasons how and why 

 we know them again, and are sure about them, is the first thing, 

 accordingly, that we have to do when we would become botanists. 

 It is not enough to remember a plant by its general aspect, or to say 

 of a lily, for instance, that it is white, and smells sweet. A hundred 

 other flowers, which are not lilies, are white and fragrant, so that the 

 description goes for nothing unless we can follow it up with an 

 intelligible account of the shape and structure of the plant which 

 will not only be correct in regard to the lily, and apply to nothing 

 else, but convey a fair notion of the flower to a person who has never 

 seen one. This is no difficult matter, every plant in the world being 

 stamped, as already said, with peculiarities which, if they do not 

 render it unique, serve at least to give it character and physiognomy. 

 All the parts of plants supply these signs and tokens, though some 

 more immediately than others. The Flower and Fruit, as the loveliest 

 and noblest, and the parts to which all the aims and energies of the 

 plant arc directed from the first moment, naturally stand foremost. 

 Next in importance come the leaves, then the stem and inferior 

 members, the value of each part, as a witness to identity, gradually 

 diminishing in the degree that it is coarser and less perishable. 

 Everywhere in nature, that which most powerfully characterises a 

 thing is its most fragile part, and however frequently renewed, like 

 the sparkle of a diamond, is the quickest to come and go. 



