BY
DOUGLAS HOUGHTON CAMPBELL, Ph.D.,
Professor of Botany in the Indiana University.
BOSTON, U.S.A.:
PUBLISHED BY GINN & COMPANY.
1890.
Copyright, 1890,
By DOUGLAS HOUGHTON CAMPBELL.
All Rights Reserved.
Typography by J. S. Cushing & Co., Boston, U.S.A.
Presswork by Ginn & Co., Boston, U.S.A.
The rapid advances made in the science of botany within the last fewyears necessitate changes in the text books in use as well as inmethods of teaching. Having, in his own experience as a teacher, feltthe need of a book different from any now in use, the author hasprepared the present volume with a hope that it may serve the purposefor which it is intended; viz., an introduction to the study of botanyfor use in high schools especially, but sufficiently comprehensive toserve also as a beginning book in most colleges.
It does not pretend to be a complete treatise of the whole science,and this, it is hoped, will be sufficient apology for the absence fromits pages of many important subjects, especially physiological topics.It was found impracticable to compress within the limits of a book ofmoderate size anything like a thorough discussion of even the mostimportant topics of all the departments of botany. As a thoroughunderstanding of the structure of any organism forms the basis of allfurther intelligent study of the same, it has seemed to the authorproper to emphasize this feature in the present work, which isprofessedly an introduction, only, to the science.
This structural work has been supplemented by so much classificationas will serve to make clear the relationships of different groups, andthe principles upon which the classification is based, as well asenable the student to recognize the commoner types of the differentgroups as they are met with. The aim of this book is not, however,merely the identification of plants. We wish here to enter a strongprotest against the only too prevalent idea that the chief aim ofbotany is the ability to run down a plant by means of an “AnalyticalKey,” the subject being exhausted as soon as the name of the plant isdiscovered. A knowledge of the plant itself is far more important thanits name, however desirable it may be to know the latter.
In selecting the plants employed as examples of the different groups,such were chosen, as far as possible, as are everywhere common. Ofcourse this was not always possible, as some important forms, e.g.the red and brown seaweeds, are necessarily not always readilyprocurable by all students, but it will be found that the greatmajority of the forms used, or closely related ones, are within thereach of nearly all students; and such directions are given forcollecting and preserving them as will make it possible even for thosein the larger cities to supply themselves with the necessarymaterials. Such directions, too, for the manipulation and examinationof specimens are given as will make the book, it is hoped, alaboratory guide as well as a manual of classification. Indeed, it isprimarily intended that the book should so serve as a help in