PREFACE. 



-♦♦- 



In this little volume I have endeavoured to give 

 a short and succinct account of the principal 

 phenomena of plant life, in language suited to 

 the comprehension of unscientific readers. As 

 far as possible I have avoided technical terms 

 and minute detail, while I have tried to adopt a 

 more philosophical tone than is usually employed 

 in elementary works. I have treated my readers, 

 not as children, but as men and women, endowed 

 with the average amount of intelligence and 

 insight, and anxious to obtain some sensible 

 information about the world of plants which 

 exists all round them. Acting upon this basis, 

 I have freely admitted the main results of the 

 latest investigations, accepting throughout the 

 evolutionary theory, and making the study of 

 plants a first introduction to the great modern 

 principles of heredity, variation, natural selec- 

 tion, and adaptation to the environment. Hence 

 I have wasted comparatively little space on 

 mere structural detail, and have dwelt as much 

 as possible on those more interesting features 

 in the interrelation of the plant and animal 

 worlds which have vivified for us of late years 

 the dry bones of the old technical botany. 



My principle has been to unfold my subject 

 by gradual stages, telling the reader one thing 

 at a time, and building up by degrees his know- 



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