574 



monocotyledonous, which answers to the opinion of Lin- 

 nseus, but we know not how far this is just. 



It appears that the line is distinctly drawn by nature 

 between plants with a simple or no cotyledon, and others 

 with two, or more, and that, so far, the principle of Jus- 

 sieu's classification is correct. Whether all the genera 

 that he has considered as monocotyledonous be truly so, is 

 another question, which does not at all. invalidate the di- 

 stinction. Some have not been examined, and seem prin- 

 cipally to be referred to that tribe, because, like others 

 that indubitably belong to it, they are aquatics ; or, at 

 least, because of the apparent simplicity of their general 

 structure. Doubts are expressed on this subject by Jus- 

 sieu himself respecting Valisneria, Cyamus (his Nelum- 

 bium), Trapa, Proserpinaca, and Pistia. Some other 

 genera, ranked as acotyledonous, are involved in similar 

 uncertainty. 



But with regard to the bulk of the Acotyledones, com- 

 posing the first of Jussieu's classes, there seems to us much 

 greater difficulty. Of his first three orders, Fungi, Alga, 

 and Hepatka, nothing indeed is correctly known, except 

 perhaps what Hedwig has published concerning Marchan- 

 tia and Anthoceros, and that is hardly sufficient for our 

 purpose. With the fourth order, Musci, this great cry- 

 ptogamist has made us so well acquainted, that they 

 prove to be any thing else than acotyledonous, or monoco- 

 tyledonous ; at least if his idea of the parts be right. The 

 parts which he takes for cotyledons are peculiarly nume- 

 rous and complicated ; but we are ready to allow with 

 Mr. Brown, at the conclusion of the preface to his Pro- 

 dromus Flora Nova Hollandia, that these organs are of a 

 most uncertain nature, rather subsequent to germination 

 than its first beginning, like what has been judged the 

 cotyledon of Jussieu's 5th order, the Filices. Yet hence 

 a new difficulty arises. The parts in question so complex 

 in Musci, are simple in Filices, insomuch that no analogy 

 between these orders, otherwise so nearly akin, is to be 



