234 FOUNDATIONS OF BOTANY 
The angiosperms constitute the great majority of seed- 
plants (or, as they have been more commonly called, 
flowering plants). Only one family of gymnosperms (the 
Conifere) is described in Part III of this book, though 
there are other families of great interest to the botanist, 
but with no representatives growing wild in the Northern 
United States. 
When people who are not botanists speak of plants 
they nearly always mean angiosperms. This class is more 
interesting to people at large than any other, not only on 
account of the comparatively large size and the con- 
spicuousness of the members of many families, but also 
on account of the attractiveness of the flowers and fruit 
of many. Almost all of the book which precedes the 
present chapter (except Chapter XII) has been occupied 
with seed-plants. 
Seed-plants of both classes frequently offer striking 
examples of adaptation to the conditions under which 
they live, and these adaptations have lately received much 
study, and are now treated as a separate department of 
botany (see Part II). 
