INTRODUCTION. 



I OUTLINES OF BOTANY, 

 WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO LOCAL FLORAS. 



Chap. I.— Definitions and Descriptive Botany. 



1. The principal object of a Flora of a country, is to afford the means of 

 determining (i. e. ascertaining the name of) any plant growing in it, whether 

 for the purpose of ulterior study or of intellectual exercise. 



2. With this view, a Flora consists of descriptions of all the wild or native 

 plants contained in the country in question, so drawn up and arranged that 

 the student may identify with the corresponding description any individual 

 specimen which he may gather. 



3. These descriptions should be clear, concise, accurate, and characteristic, 

 so as that each one should be readily adapted to the plant it relates to, and to 

 no other one ; they should be as nearly as possible arranged under natural 

 (184) divisions, so as to facilitate the comparison of each plant with those 

 nearest allied to it ; and they should be accompanied by an artificial key or 

 index, by means of which the student may be guided step by step in the ob- 

 servation of such peculiarities or characters in his plant, as may lead him, with 

 the least delay, to the individual description belonging to it. 



4. For descriptions to be clear and readily intelligible, they should be ex- 

 pressed as much as possible in ordinary well-established language. But, for 

 the purpose of accuracy, it is necessary not only to give a more precise technical 

 meaning to many terms used more or le3s vaguely in common conversation, 

 but also to introduce purely technical names for such parts of plants or forms 

 as are of little importance except to the botanist. In the present chapter it is 

 proposed to define such technical or technically limited terms as are made use 

 of in these Floras. 



5. At the same time mathematical accuracy must not be expected. The 

 forms and appearances assumed by plants and their parts are infinite. Names 

 cannot be invented for all; those even that have been proposed are too numerous 

 for ordinary memories. Many are derived from supposed resemblances to well- 

 known forms or objects. These resemblances are differently appreciated by 

 different persons, and the same term is not only differently applied by two 

 different botanists, but it frequently happens that the same writer is led on 

 different occasions to give somewhat different meanings to the same word. 

 The botanist's endeavours should always be, on the one hand, to make as near 

 an approach to precision as circumstances will allow, and on the other hand to 



