SOME COMMON FLOWERING PLANTS 



BY WILLIAM H. LANG, M.B., D.Sc., 



Lecturer on Botany in Glasgow University 



CHAPTER V 

 INTRODUCTORY 



FOR the student of nature knowledge, and especially for the 

 teacher, the study of the flowering plants of our fields and gardens 

 is of especial importance. They are of great interest, but so are 

 all other living beings and natural objects. It is their familiarity 

 and the ease with which they can be obtained that gives them a 

 place before many other things in Nature Study, and the teacher 

 is sure to draw largely upon them in his efforts to interest his 

 scholars. One great advantage is that they can not only be 

 easily obtained, but obtained in quantity, and no lesson 

 need, or ever should, be given from a single specimen. The 

 scholars may sometimes be able to collect the plants required 

 for themselves, and, if common kinds are chosen, each child 

 can have his own specimen to study. Another advantage is 

 that the flowering plants are easily grown and watched through 

 the various stages of their life, and at the different seasons of 

 the year. 



Every flowering plant has its own interest and, in the hands of 

 a teacher who has himself studied it properly, will serve* as the 

 basis for interesting lessons. The commonest and most familiar 

 plants are, however, in many ways the best to use. Familiar wild 

 flowers of the meadows and roadsides, common trees and plants 

 grown in gardens, as vegetables, fruit trees, or for the sake of 

 their flowers, afford excellent objects of study. That the common 



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