Elementary Botany. 



INTRODUCTION. 



■WHEN AND HOW TO STUDY BOTANY. 



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1. The study of Botany is the study of plants. The be- 

 ginner should therefore have specimens before him. It is not 

 necessary to wait till spring or summer, since plants can be 

 obtained at any season of the year. Fewer specimens can be 

 obtained in midwinter, though the native trees and shrubs 

 and cultivated plants are always available and therefore suf- 

 ficient material is never wanting. 



2. The common flowering plants and the Ferns with their 

 allies (the Clubmosses and Equiseta or Horsetails), numerous 

 as they are, by no means comprise the entire Vegetable King- 

 dom. The Mosses, Lichens, Fungi (e. g. Toadstools, Mush- 

 rooms, Rusts, Smuts, Moulds, Mildews, etc.) and Algse include 

 a very large number of species. There is scarcely a season 

 of the year when numerous specimens of many of these 

 groups are not obtainable in good condition for satisfactory 

 study ; besides, many kinds of material can be collected at 

 the proper stage of development, dried, and laid away for 

 winter study. The specimens can then be moistened and 

 thus made pliant, when their form and structure can be ex- 

 amined, often as satisfactorily as when they were first col- 

 lected. Some material can be kept, ready for use at any time, 

 in alcohol or in a one to two per cent, solution of formalin. 



3. Although collecting and identifying plants when in bloom 

 is both interesting and profitable work — having also the addi- 



