EDITOR’S PREFACE. 
THE original of the present work is the recognised Text- 
3 book of Botany i in use in the technical schools of Germany ; _ 
and its success in fulfilling the object for which it was 
written may be inferred from the fact that, published for the 
first time in 1869, it is now in a fourth edition. An English 
translation and edition has been undertaken—primarily at 
the suggestion of the Rev. Alexander Irving of Wellington — 
College—from the belief that no work of the same scope 
is yet to be found in the English ianguage, embracing the 
whole range of Elementary Botany, and yet of a size and 
- price to bring it within the reach of nearly all students of 
N atural Science. i 
-One of the great objects of a study of Natural Science © 
being the cultivation of the observant faculties in relation to 
the phenomena of nature, the greater part—and that the 
most useful—of the student’s knowledge must always be 
‘gained in the field, or with the dissecting-knife in hand. 
“Still he will need to be guided by the experience of previous ©. 
observers, and to be acquainted with the recognised de- 
-scriptive terms used in his science. It is for these purposes, 
and not to replace the necessity for observations of his own, 
