Sylvia in Flowerland

Abstract

AN attempt is here made to employ the methods of Lewis Carroll in the teaching of botany. In the first chapter the foxglove explains: “This is Leap Year with us (the flowers), and so we have a thirty-first of June,” and because the thirty-first of June does not occur every year, it is a day of special favour to humans, who are allowed “to hear with both eyes and ears.” Sylvia talks with plant after plant, and is instructed by them in the fascinating mysteries of cross-pollenation and many other interesting questions of plant-life. The jam is sometimes scarcely thick enough to hide the powder; but we have little doubt that the volume will find many appreciative readers.