194 Chapters in Modern Botany CHAP. 



and acorns, becomes as welcome and interesting as it could 

 be to a child. Sir John Lubbock and Mr. Grant Allen 

 again offer a pleasant guidance to the Darwinian interpreta- 

 tion of the fruit, while the simplification of nomenclature and 

 the common sense of classification may be conveniently 

 entered by help of Chambers's " FRUIT." Similarly with 

 the study of Seed we must start with observation, say with 

 our almond again, and work out a new chapter of our 

 scientific education. 



The Web of Life again. Our chapter of the web of life 

 dealt with the vegetative system almost alone, yet was com- 

 plex enough ; here the introduction of the reproductive 

 system makes the drama a far more complex and fascinat- 

 ing one. Each plant, in fact, like man himself, has many 

 relations to the world around, and the botanist thus becomes 

 a biographer of each ; yet though materials abound, the 

 full life -history even of the commonest plants has still 

 to be written ; and the student, as Prof. Balfour has well 

 pointed out, may do good service to science by following 

 this from seed to seed 'again, and year by year. 



Here then is an incentive to the study of the complete 

 flora ; since every plant is not merely a new specimen to be 

 preserved or analysed, a new beauty to be admired, but a 

 new life, with an individuality and a history of its own. 

 From landscape we come back to foreground, from the idea 

 of vegetation to that si flora. 



Systematic Botany : its Methods and Results. 

 To examine our individual specimen and recognise it with 

 certainty is a matter needing no small precision in detail ; 

 we have to draw with accuracy, and to describe with no less 

 precision, the criterion of a good description being that a 

 drawing can be prepared from it by a draughtsman who has 

 never seen the plant. One is constantly asked by some 

 friend returning from a walk or greenhouse visit the name 



