BOTANY FOR BEGINNERS— XVII. 



THE FLOWERING PLANT FAMILIES. 



It will be remembered that the flowering plants are 

 placed in two great groups one of which, the Gymnos- 

 perms, contain the pines, spruces, cycads and other closely 

 related plants, while the other, the Angiosperms, contain 

 the rest. The general public, inclined to think of the coni-' 

 ferous trees as flowerless, would probably consider all 

 flowering plants as belonging to the Angiosperms. For 

 this reason we shall leave the G^^mnosperms out of con- 

 sideration for the present and begin with the better known 

 division of flowering plants. 



The Angiosperms also consist of two great divisions 

 that are structurally verj^ different. In the Monocoty- 

 ledons, of which palms and grasses are good examples, 

 there is but one cotyledon or seed leaf, the woody bundles 

 are scattered throughout the pith in the stem, the leaves 

 are parallel- veined, the trunks have no bark, and the 

 flowers are of the three-parted type. The Dicotyledons, on 

 the other hand, have two seed leaves, the woody bundles 

 form a cylinder around the pith, the leaves are usually 

 netted- veined, the trunk produces bark and a new la^^er of 

 wood annually, and the flowers are four-parted, five- 

 parted, or at least of some other number than three. 



ORDER 1 — THE PANDANALES. 



Those who have seen in some conservatory devoted to 

 tropical plants, a slender-stemmed plant with long nar- 

 row, tapering, leaves hooked on the margins and arrang- 

 in three spiral ranks on the stem, will have a good idea of 

 the family of screw-pines {Padanus) for which the first 

 and least specialized family of Monocotyledonous plants 

 is named. In many ways do the plants comprising it 

 show^ their primitive character. We have heretofore con- 

 sidered principally the flower, but it is interesting to know 

 that the structure of the stem and leaves, the habit at 

 affected by the various species, and their wide distribution, 

 are all taken as evidences that this is a primitive group. 

 In the three families comprising the Pandanales, the 



