Outlines of botany : including a description of mosses, lichens, fungi, ferns, and seaweeds / by J. Scoffern ; illustrated with upwards of three hundred beautiful engravings.i.

  • Scoffern, J. (John), 1814-1882.
Date:
[1856 or 1857]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Outlines of botany : including a description of mosses, lichens, fungi, ferns, and seaweeds / by J. Scoffern ; illustrated with upwards of three hundred beautiful engravings.i. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    10/312
    eating tlie minor particulars in which authors of natural systems of Botany have differed amongst themselves, care has been taken to show that every natural classification of vegetables reposes on ( the same general basis, and accords harmoniously with chemistry and physiology ; whilst the ingenious artificial system of Linnaeus, however convenient for times when so many vegetable species remained undiscovered, is at best an ingenious memoria technical a grouping of vegetables in most incongruous communities, totally at variance with every scientific analogy. The reader will not fad to notice that the first half of our First Outlines does not contain so man}’- detailed characteristics of families as the second. This peculiarity has been adopted advisedly, under the impression that as soon as the student has mastered the outline of his subject, he will, without further difficulty than that already experienced, be enabled to enter upon I * its minuter details. Such, then, is an exposition of the author’s views and intentions. It remains for the public to judge how far they have been carried out. Most of the technical terms are explained in the early part of the work, but if any occur without explanation, or the reader cannot remember meanings which have already been given, he will be relieved of aU difficulty by simply referring to the Glossary and Index at the end of the volume, where the explanatory por- tion is distinguished by the use of the dash, thus : AcauHferous —without stalk.” [As some portion of the ensuing work has appeared in the ** Child’s Educator,” a word of explanation may be necessary. The very favourable reception given to the Lessons in Botany in that work suggested the issue of a more consecutive and com- prehensive series, a series which should include the whole of the original engravings, and be further enriched with numerous additions. This suggestion having been followed by requests from respected correspondents, the result is, the appearance of the present work as one Volume of the ^‘Educational Course.”]