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Title: The Study of Plant Life
Author: M. C. Stopes
Release Date: March 21, 2019 [EBook #59106]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STUDY OF PLANT LIFE ***
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First Impression October 1906.
Second Impression February 1907.
Second Edition 1910.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
ANCIENT PLANTS
BEING A SIMPLE ACCOUNT OF THE PAST VEGETATION OF THE EARTH AND OF THE RECENT IMPORTANT DISCOVERIES MADE IN THIS REALM OF NATURE STUDY
Illustrated. Demy 8vo, 4s. 6d. net
โMiss Stopesโs book is an enterprising and able attempt to popularize a difficult subject. The really keen student will undoubtedly be stimulated to pursue the study of fossil plants further, and even those who are not students will get some new ideas and derive a certain amount of interest from a book which is sometimes brilliant but never dull.โโNature.
โDr. Marie Stopes has made a name for herself in this special line. Anyone who takes an intelligent interest in the subject cannot fail to be charmed with the pleasant manner in which Dr. Stopes conveys her information.โโAthenรฆum.
PLATE I.
COMMON BRACKEN FERN (see p. 133)
THE STUDY OF
PLANT LIFE
BY
M. C. STOPES
D.Sc.(Lond.), Ph.D.(Munich), F.L.S.
Lecturer in Palรฆobotany at the University of Manchester
Second Edition
LONDON: BLACKIE & SON, LIMITED
NEW YORK: D. VAN NOSTRAND COMPANY
1910
PRINTED AT
THE VILLAFIELD PRESS
GLASGOW
As a result of the present efforts to raise the standard of education in this country, many different โMethods of Teachingโ are receiving our grave consideration. So insistent are their advocates, that we stand in some danger of forgetting that learning, rather than teaching, is the essential factor in education. It is not the knowledge given us ready-made by the teacher, but that which we learn, acquiring it by our own efforts, which enters into our being and becomes a lasting possession.
Therefore this little book does not pretend so much to teach as to act as a guide along the road for those who desire to learn something about the plants around them; hence it points out how much they can easily see for themselves of the wonderful life and work of the silent plants.
It is planned for children, whose quick sympathies are more readily drawn towards the life of things than to the dry facts of morphology or classification. Its โLeitmotifโ is therefore the story of life, and those of its activities which find expression in the plant world. Perhaps it may serve to awaken interest in some older people who have not yet been initiated into these mysteries.
As is inevitable, most of the actual facts in this book are already the common property of botanists, though some of the suggested work, such as the mapping, is only now being adopted by the Universities.
The most interesting subjects are often left out of the more elementary books, or even if given are frequently set forth in such a lifeless and pedantic fashion, that little real interest or understanding has been awakened in the young student. The present work attempts to avoid the time-worn methods of arranging the subject. Children generally know more about the behaviour of animals than that of plants (being themselves animals and frequently having kittens or other pets); hence, the parallels between the life-functions of plants and those of animals are pointed out whenever possible. Once the idea of their โlivingnessโ has been fully realised, it is time to go on to the study of the details of the plantโs body, and then to the communities of plants which grow together. In this way the child can work out from its own observations a complete and logical idea of the living plant, instead of having merely acquired a detailed but fruitless knowledge of barren facts.
To burden a childโs memory with long names is not only useless but harmful, therefore an effort has been made to use only short and simple words. A few scientific terms are introduced where they are really of value as describing things which are not generally noticed, and so do not come into the usual English vocabulary. In such cases it is far better for the child to learn the correct scientific name than to be provided with a clumsy translation consisting of several English words which can never give the precise meaning.
The use of a microscope is not to be recommended for those beginning the study of plant life, and the chapters have been planned so that no greater magnification than that of a good hand lens will be needed. This, however, makes it difficult to explain the life histories of the fern and other primitive plants; hence in the chapters bearing on them stress has not been laid on many of the fundamental points which are only to be seen with the microscope, but on those facts which can be observed without it.
The chapters on the families of plants attempt to bring out the reasons for the separations of the few great groups only; detailed classification of the flowering plants has so long been considered the chief part of botany, that it is to be found in nearly every schoolbook on the subject.
If this book should be used as the text-book for young children, the teacher will probably find it necessary to enlarge on the instructions for the work suggested in the last three chapters, which were added chiefly for the guidance of those who may assist the youthful students in carrying out the practical work therein outlined.
I sincerely hope that those who wish to learn, and are prepared to study the plants themselves, may get some help from this little guide-book.
M. C. Stopes.
The University, Manchester,
July 1906.
The public and the critics have been so kind to the first edition of this book that I am encouraged to offer them a second. There are no considerable changes in it, but I have profited by some suggestions regarding points of detail which several friends have been good enough to offer, and hope that the book has now fewer blemishes, and will be more useful. In Chapter XXXIV. two interesting photographs of drowning trees have been added, which illustrate a problem in Ecology less generally studied than its converse.
It has been very pleasant to hear from many teachers, some in distant parts of the earth, that the book has been useful to them, and I hope they will continue to allow me the privilege of their criticism or appreciation.
M. C. Stopes
The University, Manchester,
October 1910.
For the right to reproduce the photographs I am much indebted to the following gentlemen, to whom I express my warm thanks: viz. to the Rev. J. S. Lea, of Kirkby Lonsdale, for Plate VII. and fig. 149; to Prof. F. W. Oliver, of London, for Plate VI.; to Dr. O. V. Darbishire, of Manchester, for Plate IV. and fig. 130; to Prof. K. Fujii, of Tokio, for Plate III.; to Dr. F. F. Blackman, of Cambridge, for fig. 144; to Mr. Crump, of Halifax, for fig. 140; to Mr. R. Welch, of Belfast, for Plates I. and V., and fig. 138; to Dr. H. Bassett for figs. 154 and 155.
To Dr. W. E. Hoyle of Manchester, and to Miss Mary McNicol, B.Sc., I am also much indebted for their kindness in reading the proof-sheets.
I have drawn all the text illustrations specially for this book.
M. C. S.
THE LIFE OF THE PLANT CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY
Many people do not realise that plants are alive. This mistake is due to the fact that plants are not so noisy and quick in their ways as animals, and therefore do not attract so much attention to themselves, their lives, and their occupations.
When we look at a sunflower, surrounded by its leaves and standing still and upright in the sunlight, we do not realise at first that it is doing work; we do not connect the idea of work with such a thing of beauty, but look on it as we should on a picture or a statue. Yet all the time that plant is not only living its own life, but is doing work of a kind which animals cannot do. Its green leaves in the light are manufacturing food for the whole plant out of such simple materials that an animal could not use them at all as food. Even its beautiful flower is creating and building up the seeds which will form the sunflowers of the future. All animals directly or indirectly make use of the work done by plants in manufacturing food, for they either live on plants themselves, or eat other animals which do so.
Plants are living, and therefore require
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