genus Noggerathia to Living Plants, 101 



many of the fossil plants cannot be classed in families at present 

 existing, and ought to constitute new groups of equal importance. 

 The Catamites, Lepidodendra, Sigillaria, and Aster ophylleoi, are thus 

 situated ; several less well-known genera should probably also be 

 raised to the rank of distinct families. But above the families 

 are the classes and the large divisions of the vegetable kingdom, 

 and it might be asked whether those families which are peculiar 

 to the primitive vegetation of the globe, and which are so dif- 

 ferent from those which now inhabit it, would enter into the 

 present great divisions of the vegetable kingdom, or whether 

 some of them should be referred to one of an entirely distinct 

 nature, as it were, foreign to the great types of living vegetable 

 organization. This important question cannot probably be solved 

 with certainty in the present state of our knowledge of these 

 fossils. However, all the observations which have hitherto been 

 made appear to show that the earlier creation must be referred 

 to the principal types of the present creation, but without pre- 

 senting examples of them all. Thus the present vegetable king- 

 dom presents five great divisions : the Cellular Cryptogamia or 

 Amphigens, the Vascular Cryptogamia or Acrogens, the Dico- 

 tyledonous Phanerogamia, Gymnospermia and Angiospermia, and 

 the Monocotyledonous Phanerogamia. The first three of these 

 great divisions undoubtedly existed at the period of the coal-for- 

 mation, whilst the two latter appear to have been completely 

 absent ; at least, we have no positive evidence of their existence ; 

 whilst, on the other hand, everything tends to render it doubtful. 

 On this point recent researches have merely confirmed what I 

 established more than twenty years ago, i. e. the absence of the 

 angiospermous dicotyledonous Phanerogamia, and even that of 

 the monocotyledons, the existence of which then appeared to me 

 very doubtful. But new and hitherto very rare specimens which 

 have been collected and carefully studied in England, Germany 

 and France have caused important changes relative to the plants 

 which I had considered as Acrogens or vascular Cryptogamia. 

 This advance is owing to the discovery of portions of stems of 

 these plants with the internal structure in a state of preservation. 

 They have shown that the Sigillariee, Stigmaria, and probably 

 most of the Catamites, are not plants nearly related to the Ferns, 

 Lycopodia and Equiseta, but to distinct families of the dicoty- 

 ledonous gymnospermous group, more nearly approaching the 

 Conifera and Cycadece. 



Hence, at the period of the coal-formation, vegetation would have 

 consisted entirely, or nearly so, of two of the great divisions of the 

 vegetable kingdom: the acrogenous Ciyptogamia, represented 

 by the herbaceous and arborescent Ferns (the latter reduced to 

 the true Caulopteris), the Lepidodendrece, a family nearly re- 



