First Lessons in Practical Botany

Abstract

THIS is an excellent little book. Its diligent study by teachers as well as pupils would give descriptive botany the real educational value which is so often claimed for it, and at bottom it no doubt possesses, if only the old type of manuals could be exterminated. What a weight would be removed from examiners' minds if examinees would really take to heart Mr. Bettany's impressive admonition (which should be hung in every examination room where plants are set for description):—“Do not suppose or imagine facts of structure which you cannot verify.” It is really refreshing to come upon a manual, the object of which is to drill students in a healthy scientific method, and not merely to teach them how to impose on examiners with a show of sham and often preposterous knowledge, which has but a temporary hold on the memory and none on the understanding. The only genuine criticism of a manual like this would proceed from one who had actually tested its use. Improvements will gradually suggest themselves; a few friendly suggestions might be even ventured upon offhand. On p. 63, for example, the following definition is open to objection:—“Trichome, a generic term for all organs developed by emergence from single cells of the epidermis.” The chapter on Floral Diagrams is good. But it never seems to have been suggested that a genuine interest might be given to lessons in botany by making the pupils arrange the actual parts of the flower so as to form the diagram. All that is wanted is a flat square of cork covered with paper, on which four concentric circles are traced. It would be best to have three such squares for each pupil, with three, four, or five radiating lines drawn intersecting the circles, according as flowers with a ternary, quaternary, or quinary symmetry are to be examined. As each successive whorl of floral organs is removed, its parts should be pinned out in their proper relative positions by the pupil. The cyclical symmetry of the flower is clearly brought out in this way, even where it is apparently disguised. Some details in working the method would need a little elaboration, as, for example, the treatment of gamopetalous flowers; but this may be left to the ingenuity of teachers like Mr. Bettany.

First Lessons in Practical Botany.

By G. T. Bettany (London: Macmillan and Co., 1881.)