6 
INTRODUCTION 
is the most that should be attempted during a season. The 
subjects of Chapter III. may now be further dealt with and 
a commencement made upon Geographical Distribution or 
upon the details of Economic Botany. A definite piece of 
field work on the lines suggested in § V. below should also 
be taken up at this stage. 
III. BOTANIC GARDENS. 
Most students have access to a Botanic Garden, and 
should make a special point of visiting it regularly, and 
working over definite groups of plants with the aid of this 
book, but it is a great mistake to confine attention to the 
named and labelled plants of a garden, and every opportu- 
nity should be taken of doing real field work (cf. § V.). The 
notes which follow are intended as suggestions for the use 
of a botanic garden to good advantage. 
The majority of such gardens in temperate climates are 
arranged on similar lines ; they usually contain a Range of 
Houses , representing tropical and warm temperate climates, 
an Arboretum containing native trees and shrubs and others 
from similar climates, a Herbaceous Ground for herbs and 
small shrubs capable of outdoor cultivation, a Pond or 
Tanks for water plants, often fed by a running stream in 
which or on whose banks other plants may be grown, a Rock- 
garden for alpine plants, succulents, and others that love dry 
situations or stony soil, a Bog-garden for marsh and bog 
plants, and so on. There are special beds set apart in many 
gardens for Agricultural and Medicinal plants &c. 
While in the outdoor beds the plants are usually always 
arranged in the same places, this is not the case indoors. 
In summer most of the specimens from the cooler houses 
are carried out of doors and others from hot houses moved 
into cool. In the houses themselves, with few exceptions, 
Ophioglossaceae, Cyatheaceae, Hymenophyllaceae. The further orders 
studied will depend upon the object the student has in view, whether a 
general knowledge of botany, or a special knowledge of a particular 
flora, or of economic botany, &c. The treatment given to the orders 
in Part II. and the number of their genera and species will give a fair 
index to their importance. 
