2 LNTKODTJCTION. 



of plants and animals are composed, is called organic matter. 

 Animals appropriate and live upon this, but have not the power 

 of producing it. So the vegetable kingdom stands between the 

 mineral and the animal ; and its function is to convert materials 

 of the one into food for the other. Although plants alone are 

 capable of building up living structure out of mineral mate- 

 rials, and are the sole producers of the organic matter which 

 is essential to animal life, and although animals consume that 

 which plants produce, yet plants also consume organic matter, 

 more or less, acting in this respect like animals in all their opera- 

 tions, except in the grand and peculiar one by which they 

 assimilate mineral matter. Most plants of the higher grades 

 assimilate largely and consume little, except in special opera- 

 tions. Some, on the contrary, are mainly consumers, and feed 

 upon formed organic matter, living in this respect after the 

 manner of animals. The living substance of plants and animals 

 is essentially the same. 



4. Botany deals with plants : 1. As individuals, and in respect 

 to their structure and functions. 2. In their kinds, and as 

 respects their classification, nomenclature, &c. Accordingly, 

 the most comprehensive division of the science is into PHYSIO- 

 LOGICAL or BIOLOGICAL BOTANY (using these terms in their widest 

 sense) and SYSTEMATIC BOTANY. But as Physiology and Biology, 

 in the restricted sense, relate only to functions or actions and 

 their consequences, the first department naturally divides into 

 two, viz. Structural Botany and Physiology. 



5. STRUCTURAL BOTANY comprehends all inquiries into the 

 structure, the parts, and the organic composition of vegetables. 

 This is termed ORGANOGRAPHY, when it considers the organs or 

 obvious parts of which plants are made up, and MORPHOLOGY, 

 when the study proceeds on the idea of type. The term 

 ORGANOGENY has been applied to the study of the nascent 

 organs and their development ; PHYTOTOMY, or VEGETABLE 

 ANATOMY, to that of the minute structure of vegetables as re- 

 vealed by the microscope, i. e. to the composition of the organs 

 themselves. But, since anatomy in the animal kingdom includes 

 the consideration of general as well as of minute structure, and 

 indeed answers to organography, the minute anatomy of both 

 kingdoms takes the special name of HISTOLOGY. The study of 

 functions, or of the living being (animal or plant) in action, 

 is the province of PHYSIOLOGY. 



6. SYSTEMATIC BOTANY, or the study of plants in their kinds 

 and in regard to their relationships, comprises TAXONOMY, or the 

 principles of classification, as derived from the facts and ideas 



