INTRODUCTION 
is a cousin to this clover. It, too, has a bean. Come to 
think of it, it has leaves like the clover with leaflets oppo¬ 
site each other on a stem. Wisteria is a bean as is the 
peanut. Wherever one goes around the world and finds 
a plant with a bean hanging on it, he may forthwith know 
that it has certain traits that are common to those mem¬ 
bers of the family that he has known at home. 
One would hardly suspect a relationship between the 
morning glory and the sweet potato; yet their vines are 
almost exactly alike. Every tree in the world that grows 
an acorn, whatever its appearance, is an oak. When you 
learn that lawn grass grows from the inside, has joints, 
has blades instead of leaves, and tassels instead of flowers, 
you know the secrets of wheat, rice, corn, sugar cane, 
bamboo, for all these are in the grass family. Study the 
dandelion on the same lawn and you will know much of 
daisies, sunflowers, thistles, chrysanthemums, asters, gold- 
enrods, and all those flowers that bind their seeds to¬ 
gether in clusters. Study the bulb plants and learn that 
lilies sit around the family table with onions, garlic, the 
stately yucca of the desert, and the odorous tuberose of 
the Orient. 
So upon a little investigation does the chaos of nature 
begin to organize itself and become understandable. 
With the advent of understanding interest grows. When 
one sees a potted palm plant in a hotel lobby, he soon 
begins to call to mind one cousin that produces cocoanuts 
on the coral isles of the Pacific and another which grows 
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