PLAN OF THE WORK. XV 



smallest flower, up to the mountain range and the 

 expanded firmament, the interpretation thereof has 

 rushed irresistibly into my mind, 



" The hand that made us is DIVINE," ADIHSON. 



The following little book, then, is intended to assist 

 beginners, who commence, as I myself did, without 

 any instructor, and who may find, as I did, that all 

 the ordinary books purporting to be elementary intro- 

 ductions, are written on the principle of the student 

 knowing a great deal before he begins ; or rather of 

 the authors being seemingly afraid of vulgarising their 

 science by making it too plain. Having no fear of this 

 kind, but rather that of not being plain enough, I shall 

 never be deterred from resorting to the plainest and 

 most homely language, in order to be as intelligible as 

 possible. 



The chief feature, however, that distinguishes the 

 present little book is, that it is not confined to the 

 mere exposition of a system. Most of the elementary 

 works on Botany are limited to illustrations of the 

 Linnsean System, and a few comprehend also the 

 Jussieuan System ; but whilst I have introduced out- 

 lines of both these systems, I have, at the same time, 

 placed more prominently the most important parts of 

 the science connected with Structure, Fructification, 

 aud Germination. I have further rejected the modern 

 fanciful nonsense of every part of a plant being only a 

 metamorphosed leaf. (See page 153.) 



It has been very injurious to the genuine science of 

 Botany, that it has been recently fashionable to place 

 the names of mere systematic Botanists so much higher 

 than those who study the superior branches of the 

 science, as to cause the latter to be thereby much over- 

 looked and neglected. The great masters of philoso- 

 phical Botany, whose works I earnestly request the 

 student to peruse, are Grew, Malpighi, Leuwenhoeck, 

 Ray, Micheli, Reichel, Hill, Saussure, Bonnet, Du 



