2 STRUCTURAL BOTANY 



Mosses, however, which we shall describe later on, they 

 have nothing whatever to do. 



Selaginella is chosen as our first flowerless or 

 Cryptogamic type, because in its reproduction and general 

 course of development the genus, perhaps, comes nearer 

 to Flowering Plants than do any other Cryptogams x now 

 living. In other respects, such as its vegetative ana- 

 tomy, the structure of Selaginella is peculiar to itself. 

 We shall therefore pass rapidly over this part of its 

 organisation, and give most of our attention to 

 those reproductive processes which illustrate the 

 relation between Cryptogams and Phanerogams. We 

 will, however, begin by examining the external characters 

 of one or two of the species. 



I. EXTERNAL CHARACTERS 



A. VEGETATIVE OBGANS 



Selaginella Kraussiana, A. Br., 2 a native of S. Africa, 

 Madeira, and the Azores, and the commonest species 

 cultivated in greenhouses, has a creeping stem, which, 

 however, rises a little above the surface of the ground. 

 The main stem is repeatedly forked, and the two branches 

 arising at each bifurcation are alike. From the principal 

 shoots other smaller branches are given off laterally, and 

 these again bear still finer ramifications. The origin 



1 The word Cryptogams, constantly used for Flowerless Plants, dates 

 from Linueus, who lived in the eighteenth century. It implies that m 

 these plants the process of fertilisation is hidden, while in Flowering Plants 

 (Phanerogams) it is manifest. This distinction no longer holds good, for, 

 with the help of the microscope, fertilisation is at least as easy to observe 

 in Cryptogams as in Phanerogams. The names, however, are still kept up. 



2 Alexander Braun, the authority for the name. 



