PREFACE 



THE present volume is framed on the lines of the annual Course of 

 Elementary Lectures on Botany given in Glasgow University for 

 more than thirty years. During that time the Course has been 

 constantly remodelled and developed. The extended limits of a 

 book allow the introduction of additional facts, and the subject-matter 

 has itself been in part expanded. But the main object, that of 

 presenting the Plant as a living, growing, self-nourishing, self-adapting 

 creature, has been maintained throughout the book, as I always 

 endeavour to present it in the Lecture Room. 



The Lecture-Scheme has been recast as a series of Essays, each 

 one self-contained. They are designed so as to fit together and 

 form a continuous treatise. The omissions are palpable enough : 

 for no attempt has been made after encyclopedic writing. The 

 material is throughout such as will be reckoned elementary. Ele- 

 mentary and fundamental should be held as equivalent terms when 

 applied to those facts and principles upon which a Science is built. 

 It is to these that the available space has been devoted. 



The book has not been written in conformity with the schedule 

 of work prescribed by any University or School, nor is it designed 

 to meet the requirements of any specified examination. Its object 

 has been to present a true picture in as simple terms as possible. 

 Proceeding from the known to the unknown, it opens with a descrip- 

 tion, structural and physiological, of familiar Flowering Plants. 

 The consequent inversion of the evolutionary aspect of the Vegetable 

 Kingdom as a whole will probably be criticised. It is hoped that the 

 justification of this arrangement will be found in the reasoning and 

 the employment of materials later in the book. Plant-Life presents 

 its problem to any alert mind. It would be a pleasure to the author 

 if not only the student but also the general reader found in these 

 pages the Story of the Living Plant unfolding itself by stages both 



