PREFACE. 



IN this little volume I have endeavoured to 

 give a short and succinct account of the principal 

 phenomena of plant life, in language suited to 

 the comprehension of unscientific readers. As far 

 as possible I have avoided technical terms and 

 minute detail, while I have tried to adopt a more 

 philosophical tone than is usually employed in 

 elementary works. I have treated my readers, 

 not as children, but as men and women, endowed 

 with the average amount of intelligence and in- 

 sight, and anxious to obtain some sensible infor- 

 mation about the world of plants which exists all 

 round them. Acting upon this basis, I have freely 

 admitted the main results of the latest investiga- 

 tions, accepting throughout the evolutionary the- 

 ory, and making the study of plants a first intro- 

 duction to the great modern principles of heredity, 

 variation, natural selection, and adaptation to the 

 environment. Hence I have wasted compara- 

 tively little space on mere structural detail, and 

 have dwelt as much as possible on those more in- 

 teresting features in the interrelation of the plant 

 and animal worlds which have vivified for us of 

 late years the dry bones of the old technical 

 botany. 



My principle has been to unfold my subject 



