IVISON, BLAKEMAN, AND COMPANY
NEW YORK AND CHICAGO
Copyright,
By Asa Gray.
1887.
This volume takes the place of the author's Lessons in Botany andVegetable Physiology, published over a quarter of a century ago. It isconstructed on the same lines, and is a kind of new and much revisededition of that successful work. While in some respects more extended,it is also more concise and terse than its predecessor. This should thebetter fit it for its purpose now that competent teachers are common.They may in many cases develop paragraphs into lectures, and fullyillustrate points which are barely, but it is hoped clearly, stated.Indeed, even for those without a teacher, it may be that a condensed isbetter than a diffuse exposition.
The book is adapted to the higher schools, "How Plants Grow and Behave"being the "Botany for Young People and Common Schools." It is intendedto ground beginners in Structural Botany and the principles of vegetablelife, mainly as concerns Flowering or Phanerogamous plants, with whichbotanical instruction should always begin; also to be a companion andinterpreter to the Manuals and Floras by which the student threads hisflowery way to a clear knowledge of the surrounding vegetable creation.Such a book, like a grammar, must needs abound in technical words, whichthus arrayed may seem formidable; nevertheless, if rightly apprehended,this treatise should teach that the study of botany is not the learningof names and terms, but the acquisition of knowledge and ideas. Noeffort should be made to commit technical terms to memory. Any term usedin describing a plant or explaining its structure can be looked up whenit is wanted, and that should suffice. On the other hand, plans of[Pg iv]structure, types, adaptations, and modifications, once understood, arenot readily forgotten; and they give meaning and interest to thetechnical terms used in explaining them.
In these "Elements" naturally no mention has been made of certain termsand names which recent cryptogamically-minded botanists, with lack ofproportion and just perspective, are endeavoring to introduce intophanerogamous botany, and which are not needed nor appropriate, even inmore advanced works, for the adequate recognition of the ascertainedanalogies and homologies.
As this volume will be the grammar and dictionary to more than one ortwo Manuals, Floras, etc., the particular directions for procedure whichwere given in the "First Lessons" are now relegated to those worksthemselves, which in their new editions will provide the requisiteexplanations. On the other hand, in view of such extended use, theGlossary at the end of this book has been considerably enlarged. It willbe found to include not merely the common terms of botanical descriptionbut also many which are unusual or obsolete; yet any of them may now andthen be encountered. Moreover, no small number of the Latin and Greekwords which form the whole or part of the commoner specific names areadded to this Glossary, some in an Anglicized, others in their Latinform. This may be helpful to students with small Latin and less Greek,in catching the meaning of a botanical name or term.
The illustrations in this volume are largely increased in number. Theyare mostly from the hand of Isaac Spr