PREFACE. 



IN preparing this book I have used material from Plant 

 Biology, Life Histories of Common Plants, and Botany for 

 Matriculation. From these three works this volume differs, 

 apart from condensation in some places and omission in others 

 processes necessary to make the book more suitable for the 

 use of students preparing for the Senior Local Examinations 

 of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge in the prepara- 

 tion of a chapter on climbing, parasitic, and saprophytic plants, 

 and especially in the great expansion of the chapter dealing 

 with the Ecology of Plants. This important and interesting 

 subject receives here, indeed, more adequate treatment than 

 in any other work on Elementary Botany with which I am 

 acquainted. 



The essence of good teaching in Elementary Botany is to 

 bring the student into the closest personal contact with the 

 fundamental facts of the science. Accordingly I have in- 

 serted a large number of experiments, but as some teachers 

 may find that the time which their classes can devote to the 

 subject does not allow them to work through all the experi- 

 ments here given, those experiments which are of funda- 

 mental importance and would in themselves form a fair first 

 course in Practical Elementary Botany are indicated with an 

 asterisk. So far as possible, however, the sections dealing 

 with germination and with the examination of typical plants, 

 the latter being given chiefly in Chapters IX. to XVI., should 

 be carefully worked through. 



