HOW TO STUDY PLANT LIFE 69 



most plant organs, take some well-known 

 flower and study it with the help of this Glos- 

 sary. You will find yourself rapidly becoming 

 familiar with the chief botanical terms; but 

 you must have the living plant in your hand or 

 your progress will be slow; you must have an 

 actual example before you or the terms and 

 their explanations will be mere dry lists with 

 no more romance in them than the dictionary 

 holds for those uninterested in philology. 



FIRST LESSONS IN PLANT STUDY 

 EXERCISE I. 



Having bought your small stock-in-trade, go 

 into the fields and uproot two or three Tall 

 Buttercups. You may distinguish these from 

 all similar species by their leaves. They are 

 cut into three main divisions, which are again 

 variously cleft, and none of these divisions has 

 any stalk. All our other buttercups with di- 

 vided leaves have at least one of the parts 

 stalked. Bring the plants home and compare 

 them with Plate II. At the base you have the 

 fibrous root, next the stem surrounded by radi- 

 cal or root-leaves. Higher up, and springing 



