THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 



67 



that botany can be taught without a large amount of 

 technical language and has prepared this series with this 

 special end in view. Technical terms will be used only 

 when they cannot be avoided. 



In botanical works it is customary to begin with low 

 forms of life like the algse and proceed upward to the more 

 highly specialized flowering plants and in treating of the 

 latter to follow the sequence of root, stem, leaves, flowers 

 and fruit. Since this often has the effect of tiring the 

 young student before he arrives at the more interesting 

 parts, we will cut all these rules for the present and plunge 

 at once into a discussion of 



THE FLOWER IN GENERAL. 



Excepting the herb-gatherer and the horticulturist, it 

 may be said that the world's interest in botany centers in 

 the flowers of plants. So pronounced is this that the 

 word flower is often popularly used to indicate not only 

 the blossom but the plant that bears it. In botany, of 

 course, the flower is only that part of the plant that pro- 

 duces the seed or fruit. Not so very long ago it was be- 

 lieved that the color, form and fragrance of flowers was 

 designed solely for the pleasure of mankind ; but the case 

 has gradually been proven otherwise and we now know 

 that certain insects, rather than ourselves, are the indi- 

 viduals that plants strive to please. It is, however, only 

 another indication of the wonderful harmony of creation 

 that man should find so much pleasure in objects not in- 

 tended primarily for him. 



At the beginning we may ask what flowers are for. 

 Their most obvious oflSce is that of setting seed and so 

 perpetuating the species as well as extending its domin- 

 ion ; for seeds can travel much farther and faster than or- 

 dinary plants can. In this struggle for territory the 

 strongest and most vigorous seeds win ; and such seeds 

 are only produced in flowers that have been crossed with 

 flowers from other plants of the same species. So the 

 flower is not alone for producing seed, but for affording a 

 chance to cross with other plants of the same species and 



