INTKODTJCTION. O 



be, that greets not warmly the old friends of our 

 first wee toddling days. 



On this foundation we purpose to build, and 

 thus to avoid what so often proves a first and for- 

 midable difficulty when subjects are dealt with of 

 which the learners have no previous knowledge. 

 We mean to take, both for text and illustration, 

 the commonest wayside weeds and flowers famihar 

 to all, and we mean them, being their own inter- 

 preters, to tell us a great deal. We will try 

 whether they cannot outline for us, if we may so 

 speak, the plan of the flowery world, and whether 

 we cannot gather from their simple teachings some 

 idea of the great design, in accordance with which 

 the vegetable kingdom is constructed and ar- 

 ranged. It may be that many will be content with 

 learning no more than this ; but should some desire 

 to go farther, and to gain wider knowledge of 

 the numberless forms of vegetable beauty and 

 structure to be met with amid the native plants of 

 our own land, and still more strikingly, perhaps, 

 amid those of other latitudes, they will find the 

 foundation begun upon our common "Wayside 

 Weeds," a solid because a practical one. 



We call our chosen subjects common, and, in 

 one sense, they are so — the sense -in which we 

 have selected them for illustration; but common 

 are they in no other, for as surely and as well as 

 the most gorgeous exotic do each and all show 



