PREFACE 
TuE object of the present volume is to fill a gap which 
has appeared to the authors to exist in the literature of 
elementary botany, and however imperfectly this object 
has been attained, it is their hope that a sufficiently clear 
indication has been given to teachers and students alike 
of the lines upon which the interaction between the vital 
element on the one hand and the forces of Nature on the 
other may be read into the hard facts of morphology, 
by means of which the “dry bones” of descriptive 
botany may be “‘ clothed with living flesh.” 
The association of form with function, of fact with 
environment, and of effect with cause, provides undeniably 
the most efficient method of securing a real knowledge 
of any branch of Natural History, the study of which 
by this means becomes one of the highest educational 
value. 
Botany is the most accessible of Natural Sciences. 
Flowers are everywhere. They appeal to the wonder of 
the child, and for the old their study and cultivation form 
an unrivalled hobby. 
To many, however, botany appears a science of hard 
names and still harder facts—at least, at the outset. 
The knowledge derived from the text-book is too often 
overburdened with detail, and is therefore soon forgotten. 
Too much of it is concerned with the bodies, and too little 
with the lives, of the humble flowers so minutely described. 
This should not be. There is romance and tragedy 
in the struggle of vegetable forms and races as among 
animal. Plants as well as animals constitute an aggre- 
gate of living things, the component races of which 
compete for mastery one against the other; plants no 
less than animals have a history past and present—a 
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