THE ANGIOSPERMS 191 



Angiosperms. 



The characters distinguishing the Angiosperms from 

 the Gymnosperms have already been described (p. 179) ; 

 they are fundamental and comprehensive. But if the 

 basic distinction can be hit off in a few sentences, whole 

 volumes fail to do justice to the diversity of form and 

 device, to the cute adaptations, displayed within the 

 ranks of these last-comers in the plant-realm. Here 

 plant-life achieves its greatest triumph and finds its 

 highest expression; the variety of forms is immense, so 

 much so that a single student could not be expected 

 to comprehend it in its entirety; and in the production 

 of that variety life has exercised an intelligence and, 

 one might say, in some instances, an audacity, freak- 

 ishness, playfulness, and even diabolism that cannot 

 fail to stagger the imaginative investigator. Yet 

 throughout the variety there is unity: not alone in the 

 Angiosperms, but throughout the vegetable kingdom 

 the fundamental principles of plant-life are the same; 

 the plant realm is essentially a unit. 



Among the Gymnosperms there is a marked uni- 

 formity in the character of the flowers against which the 

 variety of floral forms in the Angiosperms stands out 

 in clear contrast. The variety is found in the elabora- 

 tion of the sporophylls — i.e., the stamens and pistils — 

 and in the possession of additional floral leaves forming 

 the perianth, consisting of calyx and corolla, which are 

 found in most Angiosperms, but not all; they never 

 occur in Gymnosperms. In the latter the flowers are 

 unisexual, and the sporophylls are arranged spirally 

 on a long axis; both sexes never occur in the same 



