Outlines of botany : including a description of mosses, lichens, fungi, ferns, and seaweeds / by J. Scoffern.
- John Scoffern
- Date:
- 1860
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Outlines of botany : including a description of mosses, lichens, fungi, ferns, and seaweeds / by J. Scoffern. Source: Wellcome Collection.
10/312
![eating the 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 technicay a grouping of vegetables in most incongruous communities, totally at variance with every scientific analogy. The reader will not fail to notice that the first half of our First Outlines does not contain so many 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 its minuter details. Such, then, is an exposition of the author's views and intentions. It remaius 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 : “ Acauliferous —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 pre^nt Avork as one Volume of the “Educational Course.”]](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28116513_0010.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
