Ch. I] THE VALUE OF BOTANICAL STUDY 3 



ships to one another. It includes exact description of the 

 species, and application of scientific names, which are taken 

 from Latin, as the principal language of learning. It has 

 been studied mostly by observation and comparison of the 

 prominent external parts of plants, especially the flowers 

 and fruits ; and for the convenience of such study, the plants 

 are preserved in a pressed and dried condition in collections 

 each called an Herbahium. For the use of students and 

 other workers with plants, the classification, descriptions, and 

 names of all the plants of a country are embodied sj-nop- 

 tically in handbooks, commonly called ^Iaxuals (or, if 

 more elaborate. Floras), so arranged as to enable a student 

 to find for himself the correct name of a plant previously 

 unknown to him. .\n important subdivision of Systematic 

 Botany is Paleobotant, or the study of the plants which 

 existed in past ages, as represented in their petrified, or fossil, 

 remains found in the rocks, — a subject which throws great 

 light upon the evolution of our present plants from their 

 remote and very different ancestors. 



II. Morphology, second in age of the divisions, is the 

 study of the parts, or structures, of plants, in comparison 

 ■nith one another. It therefore bears much the same rela- 

 tion to the parts of plants that classification bears to plants 

 as a whole ; and it is studied by the same methods of ob- 

 servation and comparison. ^Tien it leads from the large 

 external to the small internal parts, thus requiring the aid 

 of the microscope, it takes the name Anatomy, while if it 

 goes deeper yet, into the minute construction of the ulti- 

 mate smallest parts (called cells), it is termed Cytology, — 

 the two latter terms together replacing the older term His- 

 tology. An important phase is Embryology, the study of 

 the stages in development of the indi\ddual before its 

 birth or germination, all of its stages collectively constituting 

 its "life-history." 



III. Physiology, third in age of the divisions, is precisely 

 the same study in connection with plants as it is with ani- 



