Author: Ralph Tate

Publisher: Forgotten Books

Published: 2015-06-24

Total Pages: 315

ISBN-13: 9781330356111

Excerpt from A Handbook of the Flora of Extratropical South Australia: Containing the Flowering Plants and Ferns This work is intended for those who have mastered the elements of botany and who wish to be acquainted, as rapidly and readily as may be, with the name and systematic position of any our of Native Plants. It is purposely kept brief, and, though too abridged to serve as a sole source of information, yet it is issued to meet the need of a handy work of reference, since the Flora Australiensis is too bulky and too expensive. The plan of the Key is adopted chiefly from the Flora Australiensis, and a little practice will suffice to enable the tyro to make use of it, especially if he select at first a few known species. "The student having a plant to determine, will first take the general table of Natural Orders, and examining his plant at each step to see which alternative agrees with it, will be led on to the Order to which it belongs. If it agrees, he will follow the same course with the table of the genera of that Order, and again with the table of species of the genus. But in each case, if he finds that his plant does not agree with the description of the genus or species to which he has been referred, he must revert to the beginning and carefully go through every step of the investigation before he can be satisfied. A fresh examination of his specimen, or of others of the same plant, a critical consideration of the meaning of every expression in the characters given, may lead him to detect some minute point overlooked or mistaken, and put him into the right way. Species vary within limits which is very difficult to express in words, and it proves often impossible, in framing these analytical tables, so to divide the genera and species, that those which come under one alternative should absolutely exclude the others; in such doubtful cases both alternatives must be tried." Bentham. Special attention is directed to the characters printed in italics. 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.