NOVEMBER. 501 



ceed to describe the particular vegetation we have in 

 view 



" Beneath a spreading Mushroom's fretted roof." * 



"When LIKN-.ETJS formed his celebrated Sexual Sys- 

 tem, he was compelled to include under the term 

 CKYPTOGAMIA, a vast number of plants having no 

 visible flowers, but which were assumed to have analo- 

 gous organs to those of the PHANEEOGAMIA, though 

 altogether concealed from view. Modern botanists 

 are not in general disposed to acquiesce in the idea of 

 Limonrs, but regard the flowerless plants as altoge- 

 ther destitute of sexual organs, their reproduction 

 taking place by means of sporules, which are enclosed 

 in cases called thecce, or imbedded in the substance of 

 the plants, or else by a mere dissolution of the utricles 

 of cellular tissue. These sporules, which are often 

 exceedingly minute, have no embryo, like seeds, con- 

 sequently their growth is not a development of parts 

 already existing ; but a vegetation appears which 

 seems to be controlled in a considerable degree by the 

 matrix to which the sporule has become attached ; 

 and it has been conjecturedf that from the same 

 common form of matter, a lichen, a fungus, or an alga, 

 might be developed according to varied conditions of 

 soil and atmosphere. It would be rash to accede to 

 this view without the fullest proof, though, at all 

 events, the sporules germinate at no fixed point, the 

 mere accident of situation determining what part 

 shall rise upwards and sink downwards. 



The principal cryptogamic tribes are, the Filices or 

 Ferns ; the Lycopodiacece or Club-mosses ; the Musci 

 or Mosses ; the Hepaticce or Liverworts ; the Fungi or 



* Dr. DARWIN. t See LINDLEY'S Botany, in toe. 



