CHAPTER XXV 

 FLOWERING PLANTS 



THE PROPER STUDY OF FLOWERING PLANTS PHOTOGRAPHS OF 



FLOWERS THE PRESERVATION OF PLANTS 



THE PROPER STUDY OF FLOWERING PLANTS 



THERE will always be those who pay particular attention to flower- 

 ing plants, and whose work will carry them no further than to 

 learn the names of the flowers which they find in the field or 

 hedgerow, on moor, or in the shaded woods, and to keep specimens 

 of their finds. Flowering plants form, however, but one group of 

 the living world, and the days are gone by when their study was 

 synonymous with botany. Leaving, however, on one side the mere 

 classification of flowering plants, and their structure as now studied 

 in the laboratory, we may devote our attention for a few moments 

 to considering another way in which the nature student may ap- 

 proach them. We have already alluded to their fruits in connection 

 with the dispersal of seeds, the varying shapes of the leaves of trees 

 have claimed our attention, and we shall discuss among other things 

 the devices they adopt for their protection and their methods of 

 climbing. There are, however, many other points of view from 

 which they may be examined. The size and shape of the seeds 

 of our wild flowers might well come in for consideration, and the 

 reasons for this or that peculiarity deduced from observations. 

 There is, moreover, still something to be found out with regard to 



