54 Artificial Systems and Terminology of Organs [BOOK i. 



system of plants which he founded on the fructification, begin- 

 ning with the least perfect ; no one who knows the botanical 

 writers of the iyth and i8th centuries will be surprised to find 

 that Cesalpino admits the doctrine of * generatio spontanea ' in 

 the case of the lower plants, and in a somewhat crude form ; 

 this came from the teaching of Aristotle, and even a hundred 

 years later Mariotte endeavoured to set up a plausible defence 

 of spontaneous generation on physical grounds even in highly 

 developed plants. 



' Some plants,' says Cesalpino, ' have no seed ; these are the 

 most imperfect, and spring from decaying substances ; they 

 have only therefore to feed themselves and grow, and are 

 unable to produce their like ; they are a sort of intermediate 

 existences between plants and inanimate nature. In this 

 respect Fungi resemble Zoophytes, which are intermediate 

 between plants and animals, and of the same nature are the 

 Lemnae, Lichenes, and many plants which grow in the sea.' 



Some on the other hand produce seed, which they form 

 after their peculiar nature in an imperfect condition, as the 

 mule among animals ; these are of the same nature as mere 

 monstrosities or diseased growths of other plants, and many 

 occur in the class of grain and bear empty ears. Cesalpino is 

 evidently speaking of the Ustilagineae, but he includes also the 

 Orobancheae and Hypocystis, which instead of seed contain 

 only a powder ; and he adds that some of the more perfect 

 plants are sterile, but they do not belong to this division, 

 because the peculiarity is confined in their case to individuals. 



Some plants bear a substance, a kind of wool, on the leaves, 

 which to some extent answers to seed, because it serves to 

 propagate the plant ; such plants have neither stem, flower, 

 nor true seed, and the Ferns are of this kind. We should 

 notice this conclusion from Cesalpino's morphology, that plants 

 without true seeds have also no stem ; the view that ferns have 

 no stems continued to be held by later botanists, though the 

 original reason for it was gradually lost ; and those who in the 



