ELEMEI^TS OF BOTAI^T. 



INTRODUCTOEY. 



"Botany is the science which endeavors to answer every reasonahle 

 question about plants." i 



The plant is a living being, provided generally with many 

 parts, called organs, which it uses for taking in nourishment, 

 for breathing, for protection against its enemies, and for 

 reproducing itself and so keeping up the numbers of its own 

 kind. The study of the individual plant therefore embraces 

 a variety of topics, and the examination of its relation to 

 others introduces many more subjects. 



Morphology, or the science of form, structure, and so on, 

 deals with the plant without much regard to its character as 

 a living thing. Under this head are studied the forms of 

 plants and the various shapes or disguises which the same 

 sort of organ may take in different kinds of plants, their 

 gross structure, their microscopical structure, their classifica- 

 tion, and the successive stages in the history of the germs 

 from which all but a few of the very simplest plants are 

 formed. 



Geographical Distribution, or botanical geography, discusses 

 the range of the various kinds of plants over the earth's sur- 

 face. Another subdivision of botany, usually studied along 

 with geology, describes the history of plant life on the earth 

 from the appearance of the first plants until the present time. 



> Professor George L. Goodale. 



