PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION. 



The work, of which the present little volume forms the 

 first part, has been undertaken, at the suggestion of several 

 eminent educationists, to supply a palpable want. The 

 works on Botany, many of them of great excellence, which 

 have found their way into this country, have been prepared 

 with reference to climates differing, in some cases, very 

 widely from our own. They consequently contain accounts 

 of many plants which are entirely foreign to Canada, thus 

 obstructing the search for descriptions of those which happen 

 to be common to our own and other countries \ and, on the 

 other hand, many of our Canadian species are not mentioned 

 at all in some of the Classifications which have been in use. 

 It is believed that the Classification which is to form the 

 second part of this work will be found to contain all the 

 commonly occurring species of the Provinces whose floras it 

 is designed to illustrate, without being burdened with those 

 which are either extremely rare or which do not occur in 

 Canada at all. 



The present part is designed to teach the Elements of 

 Structural Botany in accordance with a method which is 

 believed to be more rational than that commonly adopted ; 

 and it will be found to supply all that is requisite for passing 

 the examinations for Teachers' Certificates of all grades, as 

 well as any others demanding an elementary knowledge oi 

 the subject. It contains familiar descriptions of common 

 plants, illustrating the chief variations in plant-structure, 

 with a view to laying a foundation for the intelligent study 

 of Systematic Botany with the aid of the second part ; then 

 follow a few lessons on Morphology ; and the Elements of 



