ENGLISH BOTANY. 



SUBKINGDOM II. 



CRYPTOGAMIA, or FLOWERLESS PLANTS. 



Plants destitute of flowers furnished with special organs of repro- 

 duction (stamens and pistils), but producing spores, which differ from 

 seeds in containing no embryo previous to germination. The plants 

 have, however, at some period of their growth, bodies which represent 

 the male and female organs of flowering plants, which are so various 

 that they must be described under each separate Class or Order. 



CLASS L— V A SOU LARES. 



Herbs, usually perennial, very rarely annual, rarely trees, which 

 have a stem composed of cellular tissue in which are imbedded closed 

 fibro-vascular bundles, the whole covered by an epidermis, producing 

 adventitious roots and leaves, or representatives of leaves with various 

 venation. Spores produced without fertilisation, included in spore 

 cases which are either enclosed in sporocarps (modified leaves), or 

 naked in the axils of the leaves or on the back of the leaves, or on the 

 under side of peltate hexagonal plates collected into a terminal cone. 

 Male and female organs produced on a prothallium, which is the 

 result of the germination of the spore. The prothallium is sometimes 

 simply a growth of cellular tissue which protrudes from the spores 

 after the latter have burst, but in other cases it grows out into a scale 

 resembling a Liverwort, and has an independent existence sometimes 

 lasting for months. In either case, the female organs (archegonia) are 

 formed in the prothallium, their essential part consisting of a cell 

 (oosphere), enclosed in the tissue of the prothallium, and having an 



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