PREFACE. 



A rich harvest of laboratory manuals has resulted to 

 zoology from the publication of Huxley and Martin's Ele- 

 mentary Biology ten years ago. Although that work 

 embraced both animals and plants with over half the 

 examples from the latter, it has given rise to no similar aid 

 to botanical study till the past year. The increasing 

 laboratory facilities in this country seem to warrant the 

 expectation that an elementary manual like the present 

 work will now be found in many instances to afford wel- 

 come assistance to both teacher and pupil. 



In 1882 one of the authors of this book drew up an out- 

 line of work for a few plants, which was used in the Summer 

 School of Science of the University of Minnesota. Not 

 long afterward the preparation of the present hand-book 

 was actively undertaken by the three authors conjointly, 

 and has since been gradually perfected and tested by 

 repeated use with classes and individual students. 



Although the present work is based upon Huxley and 

 Martin's in form and mode of treatment for the laboratory 

 part, it differs in excluding all matters of physiology so far 

 as possible, as the present demands of vegetable physiology 

 will hardly permit harmonious treatment along with a course 

 of dissection. 



In drawing up the outlines of work the aim has been to 

 direct the student in a very careful and systematic exam- 

 ination of a few examples, so that while he is securing a 

 knowledge of the main features of plant anatomy, he will 



