SCIENCE OF PLANT LIFE 



CHAPTER ONE 



PLANT LIFE IN GENERAL 

 PLANTS FROM OUR STANDPOINT 



PROBABLY all of us make our most frequent contact with 

 nature through plants, and no part of our environment ap- 

 peals to us more. The city dweller responds to the attrac- 

 tion of plants by growing a few flowers in a window box. 

 The suburban resident finds great pleasure in his lawn and 

 trees. The farmer enjoys the annual miracle of transforming 

 his bare fields into acres of productive wheat and corn ; and 

 the forester delights in his work with the largest and most 

 imposing of plants. This universal challenge of plant life 

 is reflected in our literature; the stories of our childhood 

 days and the novels and verse of our maturer years are 

 made vivid by their backgrounds of garden and meadow, or 

 of forest and desert. 



The importance of plants. There are many reasons for 

 studying and understanding plants besides the fact that 

 they afford us pleasure. 



(1) Plants furnish all the food there is in the world. Of all 

 living beings, green plants alone are able to organize the 

 simple materials found in the air, water, and soil into the 

 complex substances which all plants and animals must have 

 for food. The part of our own food which is not derived 

 from plants comes from animals that directly or indirectly 

 feed upon plants. 



(2) By far the greater part of all the fabrics we use in the 

 making of clothing is woven out of cotton, linen, and other 



