78 BOTANY. 



see which it most resembles. If unlike them all, then set 

 up your new acquaintance as another example, and see 

 if you can find any similar plants in the course of the 

 summer. So, do not confine yourself to comparisons be- 

 tween your specimens and the patterns in your note-book. 

 Compare them freely with each other, and you will soon 

 have many little collections of plants bearing very strong 

 resemblances to each other. 



Your thought will be something like this : While you 

 are observing and describing a plant, you will ask your- 

 self, " Have I ever before described one like this in the 

 matters of cohesion and adhesion ? " If you can think of 

 none, you will try to recall those nearest like it. By pur- 

 suing this plan, you will be surprised to find how quickly 

 many of the plants of a region, that were never before 

 thought of as at all alike, fall into company on the ground 

 of these deeper resemblances which your studies have led 

 you to discover. 



The reason why you are set systematically to classify- 

 ing plants now, and have not been asked to do it before, 

 is, that among the characters of plants that belong to roots, 

 leaves, stems, etc., there are none that are so uniform 

 throughout large numbers of different plants as these feat- 

 ures of cohesion and adhesion in flowers. Since you be- 

 gan to observe plants, you have not been taught to notice 

 any points of structure that would serve so well for unit- 

 ing plants into groups, the members of which are truly and 

 somewhat nearly related to each other. 



But the grounds on which you are to begin to classify 

 plants, although important, and, in many cases, quite suffi- 

 cient, are not the only ones on which classification is based. 

 Though they may sometimes be found too narrow, yet you 

 must begin somewhere, and to make your beginning as 

 free as possible from complexities, you start with the feat- 

 ures named in the flower-schedule. In working with this, 

 much of your experience will be clear and satisfactory, 



