Excerpt from Fundamentals of Botany From the standpoint of pure science, the most funda mental problem of botany is that of the development of the individual plant; the ultimate problem that of the development of the kingdom of plants. In other words the foundation and the ultimate goal are, respectively, ontogeny (life-history of the individual) and phylogeny (life - history of the race). Ontogeny is fundamental because without a knowledge of its processes the processes of phylogeny cannot be com prehended. Phylogeny is the ultimate problem because its complete solution involves an orderly description of all the phenomena of plant life, and their relation to each other. Thanks to the nature-study movement, most students have nowadays acquired some knowledge of the parts and a few of the functions of a flowering plant before they take up the study of formal botany; for such, Chapter II will serve only as a timely review; for others, as an essential preparation for the subsequent chapters of Part I. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.