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  BOTANY FOR LADIES;

  OR,

  A POPULAR INTRODUCTION

  TO THE

  Natural System of Plants,

  ACCORDING TO THE CLASSIFICATION OF DE CANDOLLE.

  BY

  MRS. LOUDON,

  Author of "Instructions in Gardening for Ladies," "Year-Book of
  Natural History," &c. &c.

  LONDON:
  JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.

  MDCCCXLII.


LONDON:

BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS




PREFACE.


When I was a child, I never could learn Botany. There was something in
the Linnean system (the only one then taught) excessively repugnant
to me; I never could remember the different classes and orders, and
after several attempts the study was given up as one too difficult
for me to master. When I married, however, I soon found the necessity
of knowing something of Botany, as well as of Gardening. I always
accompanied my husband in his visits to different gardens; and when we
saw beautiful flowers, I was continually asking the names, though alas!
these names, when I heard them, conveyed no ideas to my mind, and I was
not any wiser than before. Still the natural wish to know something
of what we admire, impelled me to repeat my fruitless questions; till
at last, vexed at my ignorance, and ashamed of not being able to
answer the appeals which gardeners often made to me in doubtful cases,
(supposing that Mr. Loudon's wife must know everything about plants,)
I determined to learn Botany if possible; and as my old repugnance
remained to the Linnean system, I resolved to study the Natural one.
Accordingly I began; but when I heard that plants were divided into the
two great classes, the Vasculares and the Cellulares, and again into
the Dicotyledons or Exogens, the Monocotyledons or Endogens, and the
Acotyledons or Acrogens, and that the Dicotyledons were re-divided into
the Dichlamydeae and Monochlamydeae, and again into three sub-classes,
Thalamiflorae, Calyciflorae, and Corolliflorae, I was in despair, for I
thought it quite impossible that I ever could remember all the hard
names that seemed to stand on the very threshold of the science, as if
to forbid the entrance of any but the initiated.

Some time afterwards, as I was walking through the gardens of the
Horticultural Society at Chiswick, my attention was attracted by a
mass of the beautiful crimson flowers of Malope grandiflora. I had
never seen the plant before, and I eagerly asked the name. "It is some
Malvaceous plant," answered Mr. Loudon, carelessly; and immediately
afterwards he left me to look at some trees which he was about to have
drawn for his Arboretum Britannicum. "Some Malvaceous plant," thought
I, as I continued looking at the splendid bed before me; and then I
remembered how much the form of these beautiful flowers resembled that
of the flowers of the crimson Mallow, the botanical name of which I
recollected was Malva. "I wish I could find out some other Malvaceous
plant," I thought to myself; and when we soon afterwards walked through
the hothouses, I continued to ask if the Chinese Hibiscus, which I saw
in flower there, did not belong to Malvaceae. I was answered in the
affirmative; and I was so pleased with my newly-acquired knowledge,
that I was not satisfied till I had discovered every Malvaceous
plant that was in flower in the garden. I next learned to know the
Cruciferous and Umbelliferous plants; and thus I acquired a general
knowledge of three extensive orders with very little trouble to
myself. My attention was more fairly aroused, and by learning one
order after another, I soon attained a sufficient knowledge of Botany
to answer all the purposes for which I wished to learn it, without
recurring to the hard words which had so much alarmed me at the
outset. One great obstacle to my advancement was the difficulty I had
in understanding botanical works. With the exception of Dr. Lindley's
Ladies' Botany, they were all sealed books to me; and even that did not
tell half I wanted to know, though it contained a great deal I could
not understand. It is so difficult for men whose knowledge has grown
with their growth, and strengthened with their strength, to imagine the
state of profound ignorance in which a beginner is, that even their
elementary books are like the old Eton Grammar when it was written in
Latin--they require a master to explain them. It is the want that I
have felt that