OUTLINES OF BOTANY 



WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO LOCAL FLORAS. 



(Fkom Bentham's Flora Australiensis.) 



Chap. I. Definitions and Derckiptive Botany. 



1. The principal object of a Flora o£ a country, is to afford the means of determining (i.e. 

 ascertaining the name of) any plant growing in it, whether for the purpose of ulterior study or of 

 intellectual exercise. 



2. With this view, a Flora consists of descriptions of all the wild or native plants contained in 

 the country in question, so drawn up and arranged that the student may identify with the 

 corresponding description any individual specimen which he may gather. 



3. These descriptions should be clear, concise, accurate and characteristic, so as that each one 

 should be readily adapted to the plant it relates to, and to no other one ; they should be as nearly 

 as possible arranged under natural (184) divisions, so as to facilitate the comparison of each plant 

 with those nearest allied to it ; and they should be accompanied by an artificial key or index, by 

 means of which the student may be guided step by step in the observation of such peculiarities 

 or characters in his plant, as may lead him, with the least delay, to the individual description 

 belonging to it. 



4. For descriptions to be clear and readily intelligible, they should be expressed as much as 

 possible in ordinary well-established language. But, for the purpose of accuracy, it is necessary 

 not only to give a more precise technical meaning to many terms used more or less vaguely in 

 common conversation, but also to introduce purely technical names for such parts of plants or 

 forms as are of little importance except to the botanist. In the present chapter it is proposed to 

 define such technical or technically limited terms as are made use of in these Floras. 



5. At the same time mathematical accuracy must not be expected. The forms and appear- 

 ances assumed by plants and their parts are infinite. Names cannot be invented for all ; those 

 even that have been proposed are too numerous for ordinary memories. Many are derived from 

 supposed resemblances to well-known forms or objects. These resemblances are differently 

 appreciated by different persons, and the same term is not only differently applied by two different 

 botanists, but it frequently happens that the same writer is led on different occasions to give 

 somewhat different meanings to the same word. The botanist's endeavours should always be, on 

 the one hand, to make as near an approach to precision as circumstances will allow, and on the 

 other hand to avoid that prolixity of detail and overloading with technical terms which tends 

 rather to confusion than clearness. In this he will be more or less successful. The aptness of a 

 botanical description, like the beauty of a work of imagination, will always vary with the style 

 and genius of the author. 



§ 1. The Plant in General. 



6. The Plant; in its botanical sense, includes every being which has vegetable life, from the 

 loftiest tree which adorns our landscapes, to the humblest moss which grows on its stem, to the 

 mould or fungus which attacks our provisions, or the green scum that floats on our ponds. 



7. Every portion of a plant which has a distinct part ov function to perform in the operations 

 or phenomena of vegetable life is called an Org'an. 



8. What constitutes vegetable life, and what are the functions of each organ, belong to Vegetable 

 Physiology ; the microscopical structure of the tissues composing the organs, to Vegetable 

 Anatomy ; the composition of the substances of which they are formed, to Vegetable Chemistry ; 

 under Descriptive and Systematic Botany we have chiefly to consider the forms of organs, that 

 is, their Morphology, in the proper sense of the term, and their general structure so far as it 

 affects classification and specific resemblances and differences. The terms we shall now define 



