88 THE BOOK OF NATURE STUDY 



common, but each has its own peculiarities and differs not merely 

 in appearance but in mode of life from the others. The common 

 features are so many, however, that a certain amount of repetition 

 is unavoidable in descriptions which are to be used independently 

 of one another. 



To avoid this as far as possible it seems advisable to give at 

 the outset some general ideas as to the parts of which all flower- 

 ing plants consist, and of their uses. The student must refer to 

 ordinary botanical text-books for further details, for only the 

 main facts necessary for our special purpose will be briefly stated 

 here. In doing this it will be convenient to introduce some 

 necessary names or terms, which will be used in describing most 

 of the plants. 



A word may be said as to the use and abuse of technical terms 

 in the study of plants. Far more terms are employed in the 

 concise describing and cataloguing of the many different kinds of 

 plants than are of any use in studies such as this. To avoid the 

 use of technical terms altogether would not, however, be an 

 advantage. In studying plants, and the parts of which they 

 consist, we are in much the same position as when we consider 

 any class of machines and their way of working. It is obviously 

 inconvenient, for instance, to speak about bicycles and avoid 

 technical terms. In addition to such terms as saddle or wheel, 

 which exist in everyday language and only find special applica- 

 tion, handle-bar, hub, and tyre are all technical terms which are 

 found useful. There is no more justification for taking unnatural 

 trouble to avoid the use of a convenient term in botany than for 

 talking of " the cross piece by the ends of which the rider holds 

 on/' instead of calling it the handle-bar. A certain number of 

 technical names for parts of the plant that we have to distinguish 

 repeatedly will be found of use, and be freely employed in the 

 descriptions. These will be found to present no real difficulty, but 

 it is of course quite justifiable to still further reduce the number 

 of such terms, or even to avoid them altogether in teaching 

 children. 



In looking at the parts of which an ordinary flowering plant 

 consists, and the chief modifications they present, it is useful to 

 have a particular example to refer to. For this purpose we shall 



