

PREFACE 



The primary purpose of this book is to assist 

 that large and growing class of non-professional 

 Nature investigators who derive pleasure from 

 seeking the Why and the Wherefore of details 

 in plant structure, and the relationship of these 

 details to animal life. I have, therefore, en- 

 deavoured so far as possible to keep clear of 

 technical terminology. Botany, I am well aware, 

 is a science associated in the popular mind with 

 hard names, and is often for that reason re- 

 garded by many as uninteresting and dry-as- 

 dust. In this volume my effort has been to 

 show that plant life has a very considerable 

 human interest, and that the technicalities of 

 the subject need not disturb the leisure-moment 

 investigator, but can well be left for the use of 

 the botanist and scientist. 



In the various chapters I have taken familiar 

 plants almost haphazard from field and garden, 

 and, by the aid of the generally recognised prin- 

 CN ciples of evolution, I have attempted to read 

 the meaning of their diverse forms and details. 

 As some of the later chapters presuppose an 



