PREFACE 



There are such wide differences of opinion regardiiig the proper 

 content of an elementary course in botany that no teacHer would 

 venture to put forth a particular selection of facts and principles 

 as the only one wisely to be made from the great body of knowledge 

 concerning plants. The present writers are quite uninclined to 

 adopt such an attitude toward their own choice ; still less would 

 they insist upon the precise order in which the materials they 

 have selected should be presented. 



We are convinced, however, that an introductory course can best 

 be centered about a fairly intensive study of a small number of 

 plants, and that an attempt at a more desultory treatment of the 

 subject must prove unsatisfactory. The plants used as types 

 should be easily available ; and so far as possible they should be 

 selected from among those that already have definite meanings to 

 the pupil, either because of their famQiarity or because of their util- 

 ity. In addition, the predominance and the practical significance 

 of the seed plants may be recognized by devoting some time to a 

 study of their divers forms and uses ; and in this study, too, illus- 

 trations should be drawn chiefly from those plants of which the 

 pupil sees or hears most in his everyday life. At whatever point 

 in the course this latter work is done, it should have been preceded 

 by an intensive study of the life of at least one particular seed 

 plant. 



The present book offers a sufficient amount of work for a year's 

 course. Probably aU teachers will agree that a secondary school 

 course in botany should not occupy less time than this, although, 

 unfortunately, the ideal is often impossible of attainment. The 

 order of presentation here adopted is that which will probably, in 

 general, be most satisfactory in schools that begin the study of 

 botany in the fall. It involves, first, a short study of a familiar 

 seed plant (Chapter I) ; this is followed by the examination of a 



