Excerpt from A Companion for the Queensland Student of Plant Life and Botany Abridged For many years it has been one of m constant regrets that no schoolmaster of mine had a knowledge 0 natural history, so far at least as to have taught me the grasses that grew by the wayside, Ste. Qsee that you do not cast words of ridicule and contempt upon the nomenclature used by the botanist. Use the local names locally, but remember that a plant may be known by a very difierent local name only a few miles from you; therefore become acquainted with the scientific. Point out to the young that the scientific name is often characteristic, and derived from some peculiar feature of the species or genus. Take, say, for example, the gum-tree, ironbark, and stringybark the botanist places these under the name Eucalyptus, by which they are known all over the world. The youngest pupil will see at' once, if pointed out to him, how admirably this name is suited to these trees. Show a dower-bud or half-expanded flower, and explain that the word used, Eucalyptus, was so given to these plants because the organs of reproduction, the anthers and stigma, in the early stage of their existence are well covered by an extinguisher-like lid, and thus protected until they come to maturity. Botanic names are also, in some instance, commemorative, and hand down from age to age the name of some worker in, or benefactor to, the science. As an example of this class, the name Banksia may be quoted, as it is called after Sir Jose h Banks, one of the earliest collectors of Australian plants. T ere are instances where the names will be considered, and justly so, as far-fetched and others in which it was a prostitution of a noble science to attach the name to the plant; but there have been, and unfortunately are still, sycophants amongst botanists as in other professions. 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.