INTBODTJCTIOK. JB 



and does not much exceed a man's height ; and Trees, where the height is 

 greater and forms a woody trunk, scarcely branching from the base. Bushes 

 are low, much-branched shrubs. 



The terms Monocarpic and Caulocarpic are but little used, but the other 

 distmctions enumerated above are universally attended to, although more 

 useful to the gardener than to the botanist, who cannot always assign to 

 them' any precise character. Monocarpic plants which require more than 

 two or three years to produce their flowers, wiU often, under certain circum- 

 stances, become herbaceous perennials, and are generally confounded with 

 them. Truly perennial herbs wiU often commence flowering the first year, 

 and have then all the appearance of annuals. Many tall shrubs and trees 

 lose annvially their flowering branches, like undershrubs. And the same 

 botanical species may be an annual or a perennial, a herbaceous perennial 

 or an undershrub, an undershrub or a shrub, a shrub or a tree, accorduig to 

 climate, treatment, or variety. 



The simplest form of the perfect plant, the annual, consists of 



The Root, which grows downwards from the stem, divides and spreads 

 in the earth or water, and absorbs food for the plant through the extremities 

 of its branches. 



The Stem, which grows upwards from the root, branches and bears first 

 one or more leaves in succession, then one or more flowers, and finally one 

 or more frmts. It contains the vessels or channels by which the nutri- 

 ment absorbed by the roots is conveyed to certain points of the surface of 

 the plant to be elaborated or converted into sap, and by which this sap i3 

 redistributed over different parts of the plant for its support and growth. 



The Iieaves, usually flat, green, and horizontal, variously arranged on the 

 stem and its branches. They elaborate the nutriment brought to them from 

 the root, absorbing gases from the air and exhaling the superfluous portion 

 in a manner which has been compared to the breathing of animals. 



The Flowers, usually placed at or towards the extremities of the 

 branches. They are destuied to form the future seed. Wlien perfect they 

 consist : 1st, of one or more pistils in the centre, each containing the germ of 

 one or more seeds ; 2nd, of one or more stamens outside the pistils, whose 

 action is necessaiy to fertilize the pistils or enable them to ripen their seed ; 

 3rd, of a single or double perianth or floral envelope, which usually encloses 

 the stamens and pistils when young, and expands and exjioses them to 

 view when fully formed. Wlien the perianth is double, the outer one, called 

 the calyx, is usually more green and leaf-hke ; the inner one, called the corolla, 

 more conspicuous, and variously coloured. It is the perianth, and especially 

 the corolla, as the most showy part, that is generally called the flower in 

 ■popular language. The time which elapses from the first expanding of the 

 perianth till the pistil is set or begins to enlarge, is the period of flowering. 



The Fruit, consisting of the pistil or its lower portion wliieh persists or 

 remains attached to the plant after the remainder of the flower has witliered 

 and fallen ofl". It enlarges and alters more or less in shape or consistence, 

 becomes a seed-vessel, enclosing the seed until it is ripe, when it either opens 

 to discharge the seed, or falls to the ground with the seed. In popular 

 language the term fruit is often limited to such seed-vessels as are or look 

 juicy and eatable. Botanists give that name to {ill se«d-vessels. 



The herbaceous perennial resembles the annual during the first year of its 

 growth ; but it also forms (usually towards the close of the season), on its 

 stock (the portion of the stem and root which does not die), one or more 

 bitds, either exposed, and then popularly called eye*, or concealed among 



