We will not “study botany,” as they do in school and college, but, besides collecting information on planting, watering, repotting etc., we can get a very good bird’s eye view if what flowers _are_. Nearly all of us have probably raised flowers or seen them raised, but there are enough interesting facts about them to fill a hundred numbers of our Department. Let us try to collect as many interesting facts as possible so that we can have a broader knowledge when we see them or work with them in the future. We will not include the plants or trees that bear our common fruits and vegetables. This is a subject by itself and perhaps we can take it up in some later number. Though we are going to confine ourselves to our common flowers and plants let us get a general idea of where they belong in the vegetable kingdom—in regard to ferns, mosses, mushrooms, sea-weeds, lichens, etc. For instance, which of these is the nearest relative to the asparagus—the oak, the fern, the lily, the mushroom or the rose? The question isn’t important to us in itself, but a very little effort will enable us to understand the general arrangements of the plants so that it will be an added pleasure all our lives. What _is_ a plant? What is it composed of? What does it eat? Drink? Breathe? What are the leaves for? The roots? The flowers? Why do plants differ so among themselves? Why does one grow from a bulb, another from fine roots? Why is the seed of a maple put in that peculiar little case you crunch under foot on the pavement? Oh, there are lots of “whys”! The nice part of it is that it is all very simple, after all. We can find out a great deal with very little trouble. There are plenty of easy books on the subject, nowadays, and a good many people who know about plants. Many of you know all these things, and more, without asking. The things suggested in the last paragraph _are_ important to us if we are raising flowers. If you raise flowers you are a flower-nurse and a flower-doctor. How can a nurse or doctor do much for a patient unless she knows what the patient eats, drinks and breathes, and what the various members and organs of the patient are for? Where did our flowers originally come from? Are they all native to America? If not, how did they get here? Were they always as they are now? How do plants reproduce their kind? Do all plants have seeds? Do seeds always grow into plants just like the one on which they grew? If so, have all the many varieties existed from the first? If not, how can you get another plant like the parent? Do you know what Luther Burbank, the “California Wizard,” is doing? Has a seed one parent or two? Where is it, or where are they? It’s easy to ask questions, isn’t it?