IV INTRODUCTION. 



§ 1. The Plant in General. 



G. 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 winch 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 perform 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 

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

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

 Flora of a country. We shall add, however, a short chapter on Vegetate Anatomy 

 and Physiology, as a general knowledge of both imparts an additional interest to and 

 facilitates the comparison of the characters 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 three first, whose func- 

 tion is to assist in the growth of the plant, are Organs of 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 phcenogamous or phanerogamous 

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

 term. In the lower classes, the fern3, mosses, fungi, moulds or mildews, seaweeds, 

 etc., called by botanists cryptogamous plants, the flowers, the fruit, and not unfre- 

 quently 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. 



11. The observations comprised in the following pages refer exclusively to the 

 flowering or phsenogainous plants. The study of the cryptogamous 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. 



Caulocarpic, if, after flowering, the whole or part of the plant lives through the 

 winter and produces fresh flowers another season. These include Herbaceous peren~ 

 nials, in which the greater part of the plant dies after flowering, leaving only a small 

 perennial portion called the Stock or Caudex, close to or within the earth ; Under- 

 shrubs, suffruticose or suffrutescent plants, in which the flowering branches, forming a 

 considerable portion of the plant, die down after flowering, but leave a more or less 

 prominent perennial and woody base ; Shrubs (frutescent or fruticose plants) , in which 

 the perennial woody part forms the greater part of the plant, but branches near the 

 base, and does not much exceed a man's height ; and Trees {arboreous or arborescent 

 plants) when the height is greater and forms a woody trunk, scarcely branching from 

 the base. Bushes are low, much branched shrubs. 



13. The terms Monocarpic and Caulocarpic are but little used, but the other dis- 

 tinctions enumerated above are universally attended to, although more useful to the 

 gardener than to the botanist, who cannot always assign to them any precise character. 

 Monocarpic plants, which require more than two or three years to produce their 

 flowers, will often, under certain circumstances, become herbaceous perennials, and are 

 generally confounded with them. Truly perennial herbs will often commence flower- 

 ing the first year, and have then all the appearance of annuals. Many tall shrubs 

 and trees lose annually their flowering branches like undershrubs. And the same 



