COMPARING AND CLASSIFYING PLANTS. ; 9 



but you may meet with difficulties. By-and-by, however, 

 the subject will be resumed, and, if you have sometimes 

 been confused and puzzled in classifying by the flower- 

 schedule alone, new ideas will be all the more welcome. 



Students who have the botanical charts will find them 

 very helpful in the work of classification. Upon these 

 charts there are pictured in the colors of Nature some 

 forty pattern-plants, magnified, and shown in section, so 

 that their structure is easily seen. These plants have been 

 selected because the differences they present are just those 

 broad contrasts that separate groups of plants in Nature. 

 At this stage of your study, while your thoughts are con- 

 fined to the features of the flower-schedule, the first, sec- 

 ond, third, and fifth charts present plants of all varieties 

 in these respects. Their great value lies in the distinct- 

 ness of the idea they give as to how pattern-plants are 

 constructed. 



The work of classification being now entered upon, it 

 will be resumed, from time to time, with further explana- 

 tions as we proceed, particularly when we come to study 

 such groups of plants as the grains and grasses, the cone- 

 bearing plants, the Composite, familiarly known as com- 

 pound flowers, the Umbelliferae, etc. These striking natu- 

 ral orders will introduce us to new principles in judging 

 of affinities, and pupils who are specially fond of this part 

 of the study, and are apt in tracing resemblances, will do 

 well to look over the chapters upon these plants without 

 waiting to reach them in the course of regular study. 



There is often, among both teachers and pupils, an 

 aversion to skipping about. The idea of thoroughness 

 with them seems to imply moving steadily on from page 

 to page of a book, without ever deviating from its order. 

 But in such a science as botany it is not necessary to pro- 

 ceed in this way. The subject can not be marked off 

 sharply into parts that must be learned in a certain order. 

 Of course, plant-characters must be known before they 



