X1 J OUTLINES OF BOTANY. 



that the same writer is led on different occasions to give somewhat different 

 meanings to the same word. The botanist's endeavours should always be, 

 on the one hand, to make as near an approach to precision as circumstances 

 will allow, and, on the other hand, to avoid that prolixity of detail and over- 

 loading with technical terms which tends rather to confusion than clearness. 

 In this he will be more or less successful. The aptness of a botanical de- 

 ecription, like the beauty of a work of imagination, will always vary with 

 the Btyle and genius of the author. 



1. The Plant in General. 



6. The Plant, in its botanical sense, includes every being which has 

 vegetable life, from the loftiest tree which adorns our landscapes, to the 

 humblest moss which grows on its stem, to the mould or fungus which 

 attacks our provisions, or the green scum that floats on our ponds. 



7. Every portion of a plant which has a distinct part or function to per- 

 form in the operations or phenomena of vegetable life is called an Organ. 



8. What constitutes vegetable life, and what are the functions of each 

 organ, belong to Vegetable Physiology ; the microscopical structure of the 

 tissues composing the organs, to Vegetable Anatomy ; the composition of 

 the substances of which they are formed, to Vegetable Chemistry ; under 

 Descriptive and Systematic Botany we have chiefly to consider the forms 

 of organs, that is, their Morphology, in the proper sense of the term, and 

 their general structure so far as it affects classification and specific resem- 

 blances and differences. The terms we shall now define belong chiefly to 

 the latter branch of Botany, as being that which is essential for the investi- 

 gation of the Flora of a country. We shall add, however, a short chapter 

 on Vegetable Anatomy and Physiology, as a general knowledge of both 

 imparts an additional interest to and facilitates the comparison of the cha- 

 racters and affinities of the plants examined. 



9. In the more perfect plants, their organs are comprised in the general 

 terms Root, Stem, leaves, Flowers, and Fruit. Of these the first 

 three, whose function is to assist in the growth of the plant, are Organs oj 

 Vegetation ; the flower and fruit, whose office is the formation of the seed, 

 are the Organs of Reproduction. 



10. All these organs exist, in one shape or another, at some period of the 

 life of most, if not all, flowering plants, technically called phanogamous or 

 phanerogamous plants ; which all bear some kind of flower and fruit in the 

 botanical sense of the term. In the lower classes the ferns, mosses, fungi, 

 moulds or mildews, seaweeds, etc., called by botanists cryptogamous plants, 

 the flowers, the fruit, and not unfrequently one or more of the organs of 

 vegetation, are either wanting, or replaced by organs so different as to be 

 hardly capable of bearing the same name. 



1 1 . The observations comprised in the following pages refer exclusively 

 to the flowering or phaenogamous plants. The study of the cryptogamouB 

 classes has now become so complicated as to form almost a separate science. 

 They are therefore not included in these introductory observations, nor, 

 with the exception of ferns, in the present Flora. 



12. Plants are 



Monocarpic, if they die after one flowering-season. These include 

 Annuals, which flower in the same year in which they are raised from seed ; 

 and Biennials, which only flower in the year following that in which they 

 are sown. 



