PBEFACE 



en THE preparation of this work was undertaken to meet a demand 

 en which appeared to exist for a less bulky and expensive volume 

 ^ than my Students' Text-Book of Botany. I have so far succeeded 

 rt that this book contains about 200 pages less than the Students' 

 g Text-Book ; but it is still about so much larger than the last issue 

 z of Prantl's Elementary Text-Book, which it is intended to replace. 

 However, I am convinced that it is not possible, with advantage 

 to the student, to compress even the elementary facts and concep- 

 tions of Botanical Science into a much smaller space than this. 



This book is not, however, merely an abridgment of the Students' 

 Text-Book. More 'important than the diminution of the bulk by 

 one quarter is the simplification which the contents have under- 

 g* gone by the omission of certain difficult and still debatable topics, 

 ,3 such as, for instance, the details of nuclear division, or the alter- 

 nation of generations in the Thallophyta. I have also thought it 

 desirable to follow, in the main, the classification of Phanerogams 

 laid down in the Genera Plantarum of Bentham and Hooker. 

 Moreover, there has been a considerable rearrangement of the 

 matter, and the more fundamental recent discoveries such as that 

 of spermatozoids in the Grymnosperms have been incorporated. 

 Hence the contents of this book differ in various material points 

 from those of the Students' Text-Book a difference which I hope 

 at some future time to render more marked by preparing an edition 

 of the Students' Text- Book of a more advanced character and on a 

 somewhat larger scale. 



A word in conclusion as to how to use this book. It is con- 

 venient to divide as is done here the subject-matter of Botany 

 into the four parts, Morphology, Anatomy, Physiology, Systematic ; 

 but it must not be forgotten that these are all parts of one subject, 

 different methods of studying one object, namely, the plant. 

 Hence they must not be pursued separately, but together. For 

 instance, the morphology of the leaf cannot be profitably studied 

 without a knowledge of its structure and of its functions ; and it 



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