Second book of botany : being an introduction to the study systematic and economic botany, suited for beginners / by John Hutton Balfour.

  • Balfour, John Hutton, 1808-1884.
Date:
1873
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Second book of botany : being an introduction to the study systematic and economic botany, suited for beginners / by John Hutton Balfour. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    10/152 (page 6)
    PREFACE. as in the First Book of Botany. These have been found useful m schools, by fixing the attention of the pupils on the salient points of the subject. The young student should bear in mind that it is only by a practical examination of plants in the garden and the field that he can acquire a proper knowledge of botany, which is markedly a science of observation. The full examination of the parts of flowers requires in most cases the aid of a magnifying lens. A simple dissecting microscope, consisting of a single lens, which can be raised or depressed by a screw, and connected with a stand, is very useful to the practical botanist. The compound microscope is not required in ordinary classification, but it must be used if the student wishes to examine minute tissues or the physiological phenomena connected with cells, vessels, movements of fluids, and the formation of the embryo. In the determination of plants met with during excur- sions, a field-book is required containing descriptions of genera and species. There are excellent works on the British Flora by Babington, Hooker, and Bentham. The formation of a Herbarium, or a collection of dried specimens, is useful. After a plant is collected and care- fully examined, it may be preserved for future reference by being dried within folds of bibulous paper under pressure. The name, so far as determined, the locality, and the date of collection, being also marked. The mode of making such collections, as well as the apparatus required, and details as to the microscope, are given in my Botanist's Guide. The object of such publications as the present is to encourage the teaching and the study of Natural Science in schools intended for the education of the young, so as to lead them to take an intelligent interest in the works of God. Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, 1st May, 1813.