8 Fururrt Botanist. 
Bagnall, the atitthor of the Warwickshire County Flora, which is 
the best that I have seen, is a clerk ina Birmingham factory, and 
his work is a wonderful example of what can be done in very 
scanty leisure time. Such a feat is not, however, possible for most 
people. The object of this paper is to show that for the future 
British botanist there is within easy reach of any person’s home an 
enormous field of work in which investigation is urgently required, 
and which can be cultivated by any industrious and sharp-sighted 
observer. 
The present British botanist treats all the details of flower, 
leaf, and fruits as if they were invented by Nature simply in order 
that he may conveniently label his collections. It is a sufficiently 
astonishine fact that scarcely any realise, that every small and 
insignificant character has a definite object and purpose. Yet this 
is obvious to everyone who grasps the principle of Darwin’s “Struggle 
for Existence”; and the idea goes back to far before Darwin’s time; 
for Geoffrey St. Hilaire, in 1795, had grasped it more or less 
clearly,and it is very philosophically explained by Herbert Spencer 
in 1852. : 
In our own time Sir John Lubbock, Grant Allen, Henslow, 
Korner, Wiesner, and others have studied this question practically. 
A few illustrations will make their point of view clearer. Flowers 
are red not because human beings admire that colour, or find it a 
useful guide in the study of botany, but because this shade 
attracts a certain kind of insect. A poppy has thick, hard, and 
hairy sepals, which enclose the young flower, and fall off when 
they are no longer required, zo¢ because caducous sepals are use- 
ful to us in distinguishing the order Papaveracez, but because 
they are of advantage to the bud. 
A laurel has glossy, hard leaves because the rain dries rapidly 
off foliage of this kind, and hence fungus spores and bacteria do 
not find a footing. If you look at this sparmannia you will see 
that the leaves have a curious shape. ‘They are brought back into 
lobes, so that the growing point is protected from excessive light 
and heat. So with the curious, unsymmetrical begonia leaf; the 
odd lobe protects the young bud, though this is not easy to see 
in hothouse specimens. 
These are isolated examples of a new and most important 
branch of botany which may be called ‘‘ The Suitability of Plants to 
their Climate,” or one may say Habitat, Environment, or Milieu, 
