THE PRICKLY PEAR OF THE DESERT IN THE AMERICAN SOUTHWEST _Frontispiece_ FACING PAGE BANYAN--A FIG TREE OF INDIA 32 LACELEAF--A SUBMERGED AQUATIC PLANT 33 ROOT HAIRS WITH FINE SOIL PARTICLES ATTACHED 33 AERIAL ROOTS OF FIG TREES 64 VENUS’S FLYTRAP--AN INSECTIVOROUS PLANT 65 INDIAN PIPE--A SAPHROPHYTIC PLANT 96 PARTRIDGE BERRY--A TRAILING VINE 96 RAFFLESIA, THE LARGEST FLOWER IN THE WORLD 97 TALIPOT PALM OF CEYLON 128 TRAVELERS’ TREE, A PLANT OF THE BANANA FAMILY 129 WIND-BLOWN POLLEN OF THE JAPANESE RED PINE 160 COCONUT GROVE IN THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 161 TRANSPLANTING RICE IN JAVA 192 TEA ESTATE IN CEYLON 193 BANANA PLANTATION IN FRUIT 224 RICE TERRACES IN CHINA 225 FOREST OF THE TEMPERATE ZONE 256 LUXURIANT VEGETATION OF A TROPICAL RAIN FOREST 257 FOSSIL AND LIVING ALGÆ COMPARED 320 LANDSCAPE OF THE CARBONIFEROUS AGE 321 DESERT PLANTS OF THE SOUTHWEST UNITED STATES 352 CONTEST BETWEEN GRASS LAND AND TREE VEGETATION 353 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER PLANTS AND OUR DAILY NEEDS Perhaps few of us realize that without plants all our modern civilization would be swept away and that upon plants has been built all that we have so far accomplished and everything that we may yet become. The overthrow of any king or republic, the wiping out of all money and finance or any of the manifold evidences of our modern world could not for a moment be compared to what would happen to us with the sudden destruction of plant life from the earth.