FLORA'S LEXICON. 



241 



Poly gam ia Necessaria. Florets in the centre, fur- 

 nished with stamens and pistils, but producing no 

 seed. Those in the circumference with only pistils, 

 and producing seed. Marigold. 



Polygamia SegTegata. (Separated florets). That is 

 when several florets, each having its own proper cup, 

 are inclosed within one common calyx, so as to form 

 altogether one flower only. 



The Syngenesia class comprehends those flowers which Bota- 

 nists have agreed to call compound. The essential character of 

 a compound flower consists in the anthers being united, so as to 

 form a cylinder, and a single seed, being placed upon the recep- 

 tacle, under each floret. The Dandelion, the Thistle, and the 

 Sun-flower, are compound flowers, that is, each of these flowers 

 is composed or compounded of a number of small flowers, called 

 florets. 



The Cryptogamia class consists of those plants in which the 

 obscure and peculiar fructifications do not fall under either of the 

 preceding distributions ; they are divided into five orders. 



1. Miscellanse — Miscellaneous. Including subjects incapable 

 of arrangement under any of the following, and in many respects 

 disagreeing with one another, as the horsetail, &c. 



2. Filices — Ferns. A well-known kind of production, com- 

 prising plants which have their flowers disposed in spots or lines, 

 on the under surface of the leaves, as in the Polypody and 

 Spleenwort, though sometimes in spikes, as in the Osmund 

 Royal. 



3. Musci — Mosses. Familiar subjects. 



4. Hepaticae, a kind of mosses. Distinguished from the fore- 

 going, by a difference in the fructification. 



5. Algse, including plants which scarcely admit of a division 

 into root, stem, and leaf; to these belong the different kinds of 

 Lichens, and Fucus or Sea-weed. 



6. Fungi — Funguses. Common objects comprising mush- 

 rooms, &c. 



21 



