FOOTNOTES FROM THE PAGE OF NATURE OR FIRST FORMS OF VEGETATION. BY THE REV. HUGH MACMILLAN, WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. Cambridge: MACMILLAN AND CO. AND 23, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, London. 1861. [The Right of Translation is reserved.] PREFACE. THE different chapters of this work were first composed and delivered in the form of a series of popular lectures. Re-written, and considerably extended, they are now published with the view of awakening the interest of the reader in a department of nature with which few, owing to the technical phraseology of botanical works, are familiar. Those who have derived pleasure and profit from the study of flowers and fernssubjects, it is pleasing to find, now everywhere popular— by descending lower into the arcana of the vegetable kingdom, will find a still more interesting and delightful field of research in the objects brought under review in the following pages. This work is neither a text-book nor a guide to species, but simply a popular history of the uses, structural peculiarities, associations, and other interesting facts connected with the humblest forms of plant life; and, as such, it may be regarded as an introduction to more scientific treatises, which deal with particular orders and species. H. M. FREE MANSE OF KIRKMICHAEL. |