= = vane 
ee Ny a aaa tliat —— 
Se ae 
INTRODUCTION 
For a long time botanical science, in the popular mind, 
consisted chiefly of pulling flowers to pieces and finding 
their Latin names by the use of the analytical key. All 
the careful descriptions of the habits of plants in the classic 
books were viewed solely as conducive to accuracy in placing 
the proper label upon herbarium specimens. Long after the 
study of botany in the universities had become biological 
rather than purely systematic, the old régime held sway in 
our secondary schools; and perhaps some of us to-day know 
of high schools still working in the twilight of that first ray 
that pierced primeval darkness. However, this has practi- 
cally passed away, and to-day life and its problems, its suc- 
cesses and its failures, absorb the attention of the botanist 
and zodlogist. ‘The knowledge of the name of the plant or 
animal is simply a convenience for discrimination and refer- 
ence. The systematic relations of a plant or animal are used 
in showing present anatomical affinities and past develop- 
ment. The absorbing themes of investigation and study are 
the life processes and the means by which the organisms 
living in the world to-day have climbed upward and placed 
themselves in the great realm of the “ fit.” 
When the idea of nature study first dawned in the educa- | 
tional world, it was inevitably confused with the sciences 
on which it was based. Hence in earlier times we tried to 
teach the nature study of plants by making the children pull 
V 
