ENDOGENS. 45 



This latter scheme recommends itself by bringing together a much 

 larger number of related families than are found in proximity under 

 the other ; it prepares the way likewise for their being marshalled 

 into sets of half-a-dozen or so, that can be pleasantly taken in at a 

 bird's-eye view, an advantage which in the former case appears, to 

 say the least of it, very partial. There is this great advantage, too, 

 about it, that there are scarcely any exceptions to the grand distinctive 

 characters, whereas in the other scheme they are innumerable. 

 Whichever scheme be used in a book, the great primary classes of 

 Exogens and Endogens are unaffected by it, and the families remain 

 the same. 



Unisexual Exogens. — These comprise only about a dozen families of 

 importance, and therefore need no preliminary grouping. 



Endogens. 



Endogens include all plants of a grassy kind, together with sedges, 

 rushes, and the elegant tribes represented in the hyacinth, the orchis, 

 and the lily. In hot countries their circle is widened by the glorious 

 palm-trees, well called by Linnaeus, the " Princes of the Vegetable 

 Kingdom," and which, with a few exceptions, also tropical, are the 

 only arborescent members of the class. Except in green-houses, we 

 never see endogenous trees in England ; and even the captives in our 

 conservatories, with all their green and beautiful aspiration, give but 

 a faint idea of the dignity of Endogens as they are in the Indies. 

 The first section of Endogens has complete and usually brilliant 

 flowers ; those of the other are incomplete and chafF-like. They 

 are called respectively " Petaloid Endogens " and " Glumaceous 

 Endogens." 



Flowerless or imperfect plants present themselves, like the nobler 

 half of botanical nature, under two principal aspects. The species are 

 innumerable ; they belong, however, to very few distinct families. 

 The higher forms comprise ferns, mosses, the delicate plants called 

 Lycopodhm and Selaginella, and the curious " horsetails " or Equiseta, 

 and from the circumstance of their possessing leafy organs, and more 

 or less of an upright and green stem or stalk, with veins and woody 

 fibres in it, are distinguished, technically, as Cormogens. The lower 

 forms comprise sea-weeds, lichens, fungi, or mushrooms and toad- 

 stools of all kinds, also the hair-like Conferva; of fresh-water, and 



