PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION 



THIS book is intended as a first guide to the study of 

 the structure of plants. Botany is now taught in 

 schools of all kinds, and wherever Botany is taught 

 it has become customary to expect some knowledge 

 of the construction of plants, and of the function of 

 their organs. All that I have aimed at in this book 

 is to secure that such knowledge, when first acquired, 

 shall be correct as far as it goes. 



My purpose has been to write an Introduction to 

 Structural Botany, not a manual of Botany in general. 

 It is absolutely necessary that schoolboys and girls, if 

 they are to learn this science at all, should also gain 

 a knowledge of plants in the field. For this part of 

 the work a guide is necessary, and some such book 

 as Professor Oliver's Lessons in Elementary Botany is 

 indispensable. 



The type-system has been adopted, as far as 

 practicable, because it seems better to gain as thorough 

 a knowledge as possible of a few plants, rather 

 than to acquire mere scraps of information about 

 a larger number. The types have been specially in- 

 vestigated for the purpose of this book, and many of 



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