INTRODUCTION 



PART I 



EXPLANATION OF TERMS 



The object of this volume is to introduce the lover of Nature to 

 an acquaintance with the common British flowering plants, to 

 teach the unscientific how to find out the names of the flowers 

 met with in the course of country rambles. Such a knowledge 

 of plants, it may be said, and said with truth, is not Botany ; but 

 it is a step towards Botany ; for there can be no doubt that 

 scientific treatises on this subject would often be studied with 

 more pleasure if the reader were familiar with the outward ap- 

 pearance of the examples quoted; just as we take greater 

 interest in accounts of astronomical discoveries if we have seen 

 and handled a telescope than if we had merely had one described 

 to us, no matter with what accuracy and minuteness. The 

 reader, or, inasmuch as even the elementary knowledge of a 

 science can only be attained by study, the student, who wishes to 

 make this volume practically useful is recommended to read with 

 care and attention the following pages, into which the author has 

 introduced nothing but what is essential to the proper under- 

 standing of the body of the work. 



Before a novice can commence the study of any science, he 

 must make himself acquainted with the terms employed by 

 writers on that science, and he must not be frightened if things 

 new to him should have strange names. Unmeaning and hard 

 to be remembered they must appear to him at first, but this 

 will be only as long as they remain mere sounds. When he has 

 gained a knowledge of the things for which they stand, they will 

 lose their formidable appearance, and, hard as they may still be 

 to pronounce, they will very soon become familiar to the mind, if 

 not to the tongue. In a scientific treatise on Botany, taken in its 

 widest sense, these terms must of necessity be very numerous ; 

 but not so, however, with a popular description of the plants 

 growing wild in a single country of limited extent. The author 



