Produced by Henry Flower and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) Transcriber's Note Italic text is indicated by ~swung dashes~, bold text by =equals signs=, subscript by underscores (e.g. CO_{2}), and superscript by caret signs (e.g. C^1). THE STUDY OF PLANT LIFE ~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 “Miss Stopes’s 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.”--=Nature.= “Dr. 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.”--=Athenæum.= [Illustration: 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 Palæobotany at the University of Manchester ~Second Edition~ LONDON: BLACKIE & SON, LIMITED NEW YORK: D. VAN NOSTRAND COMPANY 1910 PRINTED AT THE VILLAFIELD PRESS GLASGOW PREFACE As a result of the present efforts to raise the standard of education in this country, many different “Methods of Teaching” 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 “Leitmotif” 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.