PREFACE 



This book is written in tlie knowledge that to nearly all 

 college students an introductory course in Botany is part of 

 a general education, and not a preparation for a professional 

 botanical career. The distinction is important because our 

 existent courses are largely adaj)ted, albeit unconsciously on 

 our part, to tlie latter end. The needs in the two cases are 

 not the same, though the difference is less in matter and 

 method than in proportion and emphasis. All students alike 

 need that personal contact with specihc realities, and that ex- 

 ercise in verifiable reasoning, which laboratory courses render 

 possible. Knowledge, however, is valuable to the specialist 

 in the proportions of its objective importance, but to the gen- 

 eral student in the proportions of its bearing on the actions 

 and thoughts of mankind. In the one case the demands of 

 the science are paramount and in the other the interests of the 

 student. 



In conformity with its aim, the book gives more attention 

 to the large and visible aspects of plant nature than to the 

 minute and obscure. To the general student the things he 

 can see in the world, and will meet with again, are more im- 

 portant than those which lie remote from his path, though the 

 specialist must know both near and remote, because both exist. 

 Especially the book lays great emphasis njjon interpreta- 

 tion, or the explanation of the " principle " of things, and the 

 connections of botanical science with the general body of 

 knowledge, and man's direct relations with plants. Indeed 

 the book may be described as an attempt to present and inter- 

 pret the humanly important aspects of plant nature in the 



