INTRODUCTION. xi 



The science of Botany lias not yet received that attention to 

 which it is justly entitled, on account of that forbidding array 

 of dark technicalities which has been but too frequently pre- 

 sented to the minds of those seeking instruction. But much 

 pleasing, wonderful, and instructive truth may be communi- 

 cated about plants in plain ordinary language, and by thus 

 studiously avoiding the use of scientific terms, and keeping to 

 the simplicity of nature, the approach of the student to the 

 study of them may be greatly facilitated. Linnaeus and his 

 scholars have generally written in Latin. They addressed 

 themselves to anatomists, physicians, and philosophers, and 

 not to the people, or they would have adopted a different lan- 

 guage as a means of communicating thought. I shall endeavor 

 to copy Nature in her simplicity, and to conduct my readers, 

 by a plain and easy pathway, to the noble temple of Flora ; 

 and, when they shall catch a glimpse of the glorious interior, 

 of the play of those magnificent laws of life of which man is 

 the highest expression, and which operate in the production 

 of the vast chain of organic being beneath him, there is no 

 difficulty which they will not attempt to surmount, in order 

 to learn more about those beautiful forms of life called plants, 

 and to solve the problem of their growth and reproduction. 



