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10-i Wisconsin Academy of Sciences^ Arts^ and Letters. 



Here, tlien, we have tlie basis of our first grand division of 

 the vegetable kingdom into two very distinct and easily recog- 

 nizable parts ; the one contains the spore-bearing plants (Spo- 

 eifer.e), the other includes the seed-bearing plants (Spermi- 

 FER^). This corresponds exactly with the division generally 

 adopted, into flowerless and flowering plants. But these names 

 are objectionable, especially for the higher orders of spore, 

 bearers, the mosses, ferns, etc., which have organs so analogous 

 to true flowers that we cannot say they are really flowerless. 

 Recent botanical writers are hardly consistent in describing the 

 inflorescence, or mode of flowering of these so-called flowerless 

 plants. They all produce and are propagated by spores, and 

 hence we not only avoid this absurdity but follow nature more 

 closely by calling them spore-bearing (Sporiferous) plants. 



Just in proportion as we value a thing, so do we provide for 

 its care and protection ; and so in nature the seeds and spores 

 ■of the higher classes of plants are provided with coverings for 

 their protection, while those of the lower classes are left almost 

 or quite naked. We thus have not only a basis for the next 

 subdivision of the vegetable kingdom, but a sure indication of 

 the relative position of these subdivisions in rank and import- 

 ance. 



I. The lowest class of spore-bearing plants — the Algge, 

 ^Fungi and Lichens — produce spores directly upon or within 



the body of the plant, without special provision for 

 covering or inclosing them ; hence these may be 

 called Gymnospor^ or naked-spore-bearing plants. 

 The asci in which spores are found are mere open- 

 ings or sacks, and can hardly be called capsules or 

 ''^' spore covers. These are the lowest and most sim- 



ple plants ; they stand at the bottom of the scale of vegetable 

 life. 



II. The second class of plants we will call Angiospor^, 

 because the spores are covered or provided with little cups 



Fig. 3— lichen, magnified. 



