PREFACE. 



THIS book is intended for the use of beginners, and for classes in the 

 common and higher schools, in which the elements of Botany, one of 

 the most generally interesting of the Natural Sciences, surely ought to be 

 taught, and to be taught correctly, as far as the instruction proceeds. 

 While these Lessons are made as plain and simple as they well can be, 

 all the subjects treated of have been carried far enough to make the book 

 a genuine Grammar of Botany and Vegetable Physiology, and a sufficient 

 introduction to those works in which the plants of a country especially 

 of our own* are described. 



Accordingly, as respects the principles of Botany (including Vege- 

 table Physiology), this work is complete in itself, as a school-book 

 for younger classes, and even for the students of our higher seminaries. 

 For it comprises a pretty full account of the structure, organs, growth, 

 and reproduction of plants, and of their important uses in the scheme of 

 creation, subjects which certainly ought to be as generally understood 

 by all educated people as the elements of Natural Philosophy or Astron- 

 omy are ; and which are quite as easy to be learned. 



The book is also intended to serve as an introduction to the author's 

 Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States (or to any similar 

 work describing the plants of other districts), and to be to it what a 

 grammar and a dictionary are to a classical author. It consequently con- 

 tains many terms and details which there is no necessity for young stu- 

 dents perfectly to understand in the first instance, and still less to commit 

 to memory, but which they will need to refer to as occasions arise, when 

 they come to analyze flowers, and ascertain the names of our wild plants. 



To make the book complete in this respect, a full Glossary, or Diction- 

 ary of Terms used in describing Plants, is added to the volume. This con- 

 tains very many words which are not used in the Manual of Botany ; 

 but as they occur in common botanical works, it was thought best to in- 

 troduce and explain them. All the words in the Glossary which seemed 

 to require it are accented. 



