BOTANY 



SG2 



BOTANY 



II. Bryophytes (bri'ofitcs), or, to use a 

 simpler name which means the same, "moss 

 plants." This group includes two forms: 



(a) Liverworts. 



(b) Mosses. 



III. Pteridophytes (ter 1 id o fries), or "fern 

 plants." Though the name means literally 

 / r plants, other plants belong to the group, 

 as listed below. Some of these pteridophytes 

 are large and beautiful plants and to the un- 

 taught observer might seem to be as high in the 

 scale as the grasses or garden plants, but they 

 do not have flowers nor produce seed. 



(a) True ferns. 



(b) Horsetails or scouring rushes. 



(c) Club mosses. The name must not lead to 

 confusion with the true mosses lower In the 

 scale. 



IV. Spermatophytes (spurm'atofites). The 

 name means literally seed plants, and it is of 

 this group people usually are thinking when 

 they talk of plants, for by all means the most 

 conspicuous, beautiful and useful members of 

 the plant kingdom belong to it. Not all the 

 seed plants of this great group belong to one 

 class, the method of bearing the seed giving rise 

 to a division into gymnosperms and angio- 

 sperms (see these titles in these volumes). 



1 . Gymnosperms (jim ' no spurmz), or "naked- 

 seed plants," which include 



(a) Pines 



(b) Cycads 



(c) Ginkgo or maidenhair trees. 



2. Angiosperms (an' jeo spurmz), or plants 

 with enclosed seeds, which include 



All of the common trees except the pine and 

 all of the conspicuous garden plants. 



They are divided into two groups, the divisions 

 being based on the number of seed-leaves. 

 Those plants which have but one are classed 

 as monocotyledons, those which have two as 

 dicotyledons, the term cotyledon here meaning 

 seed-leaf, and the mono and di, respectively, one 

 and two. 



(a) Monocotyledons (mon o hot i le ' donz). 

 To this order or subclass belong about forty 

 plant families, some of which are of great im- 

 portance. The chief of these are the following: 



(1) Grass Family. This is probably the 

 most useful to man of all plant families, for it 

 includes not only the grasses ordinarily so 

 called, which are valuable for hay and for graz- 

 ing, but the bamboo, the sugar cane, and all 

 the cereals. 



(2) Lily Family, which has about 2,600 spe- 

 cies scattered all over the world. The section 

 above on PLANT FAMILIES gives an idea of the 

 importance of. this family. 



(3) Palm Family. There are parts of the 

 world where certain trees of this family are 



the mainstay of the people, and some of its 

 members, as the cocoa palm and date palm, are 

 of widespread importance. 



(4) Amaryllis Family. 



(6) Iris Family. 



(6) Orchis Family. 



(7) Pineapple Family. 



(8) Banana Family. 



(b) Dicotyledons (dikotile'donz). To this 

 subclass belong more than 200 families, some of 

 them small and obscure, many of them very 

 large and important, like the rose family. It 

 is impossible to list all of these families here, 

 but a glance at the few which follow will make 

 plain the great variety of dicotyledonous 

 plants : 



(1) Willow Family 



(a) Poplar 



(b) Willow 



(2) Beech Family 



(a) Beech 



(b) Chestnut 



(c) Oak 



(3) Buttercup Family (see above) 



(4) Poppy Family (see above) 



(5) Mustard Family 



(6) Rose Family (see above) 



(7) Pulse Family (see above) 



(8) Maple Family 



( a ) Maple 



(b) Box Elder 



(9) Vine Family 



(a) Grape 



(b) Virginia creeper 



(c) Boston ivy 



Practical Aspects of Botany. It must not be 

 inferred that botany is a mere theoretical 

 science, a pursuit of facts for facts' sake. If 

 all that resulted from the researches of botan- 

 ists were a classification, however complete and 

 exact, the subject would be a barren one, in- 

 deed. But it has its very practical phases. 

 For one thing, though the medical side is no 

 longer dominant as it once was, it is still of 

 great importance, and a study of certain plants 

 and their effects is one of the necessary parts 

 of a physician's education. Closely related to 

 this is the study, of late so absorbing to many 

 scientists of distinction, of those simple plant 

 forms, the bacteria, which play so large a part 

 in many diseases. 



Many plants, too, are useful in the arts, and 

 the study of these is known as economic bot- 

 any, while agricultural botany, or the study of 

 farm crops, is of an importance which demands 

 no emphasis. A knowledge of botany is essen- 

 tial to forestry, and connected with this is the 

 lumber industry in many of its phases. In fact, 

 if a careful examination is made, it is difficult 

 to find an industry which does not touch bot- 

 any at some point. A certain phase of botany 



