INTRODUCTION 



TO 



BOTANY. 



BY 



J. P. SOUTTEE, 



BISHOP AUCKLAND. 



The young student of botany is as a rule dismayed on the very threshold 

 of the science, by the formidable array of long unpronounceable names, 

 which, to him, seem inseparable from a study of the subject, and he wonders 

 why the humble weeds and beautiful flowers should be shrouded in such an 

 array of hard technical terms. That there is a certain amount of truth in 

 this impeachment cannot be gainsaid ; still it may be safely averred, that 

 botany as a science is freer from such a mass of verbal jargon than any other 

 of the natural sciences. And one may acquire a fair knowledge of the 

 of the elementary process of plant life, and a sufficiently intimate acquaintance 

 with the classifying and arranging of the plants which may be collected in 

 one's Summer walks, with the vocabulary in use in every-day life, or at least 

 with occasional reference to a good dictionary. 



Arrangement or organization is what constitutes the difference betwixt a 

 mob or multitude of people and a well-drilled army. So with plants. What 

 seems to the casual observer a multifarious assemblage, by a little systematic 

 arrangement becomes an array of orderly individuals, all less or more closely 

 related to each other. And the skilled botanist can at once tell from the 

 characteristics of any single plant, its place and position in the general 

 arrangement, and indicate with which others it has the greatest affinity, and 

 with whom it should stand side by side in close alliance. To attain this end, 

 or rather, perhaps, to explain the relative position of one plant to another 

 accurate language is necessary. So, to avoid needless repetitions, and be 

 consise as well as precise, various terms are used, which, although they may 



