BRAUN, ON UNlCJaLULAll ALG.E. 15 



tative formations. To this category belong the higher, vas- 

 cular cr\^togams, fiu'nislied with leaves, of which, according 

 to aiithors, and also fi'om the historical CAddence supplied 

 by geology, is constituted the second division of the vege- 

 table kingdom, formerly the highest throughout the more 

 ancient periods of the protogfean Flora. The term cormophytes 

 might be employed to distinguish the plants included in this 

 section. 



The plants belonging to each of the above divisions, and 

 which have conjointly, since the time of Linn?eus, been termed 

 Cryptogamia, all agree in the circumstance of their wanting 

 flowers and true fruit, a character by which they were distin- 

 guished by those fathers in Botany who are esteemed by 

 Linnseus as the first orthodox systematists — Csesalpinus and 

 Ray. These are succeeded by the floriferous or phseneroga- 

 mous plants {anthophytes) , which again, like the cryptogams, 

 exhibit a binary division, according to the degree of evolution 

 which they reach ; for there are some in which the production 

 of the flower commences, indeed, through a more exalted me- 

 tamorphosis of the leaves, but is not fully completed, the 

 carpellary leaves which constitute the true fruit enclosing 

 seeds being deficient. As plants of this kind, which, though 

 fm'nished with a flower, have no true fruit, are to be regarded 

 the Cycadea and Conifei'<s, which, formerly the subjects of 

 futile and vain attempts at explanation, are now admitted 

 without doubt to be gymnospermous, a truth for which we 

 are indebted to the sagacity of Robert Brown. That the 

 gymnospermous anthophytes really constitute a separate and 

 independent group, by no means to be associated \vith the 

 dicotyledons, with which they have hitherto been classed by 

 most systematists, is proved by their habit,* the very incom- 

 plete structtQ'e of the floAvers, the disposition and unusual 

 formt of the stamens, and by the structiu'e of the wood, but 

 chiefly by the mode of generation, whose very manifest ana- 

 logy with that of cryptogams has been excellently illustrated 

 by Hofmeister. It is manifest, therefore, that they must be 

 put in the lowest place, among the phanerogams, contermi- 

 nous with the cryptogams, an arrangement which is favoured 



* The habit of the Cyeudece is manifestly filicoid, aud that of the Coni- 

 fene to a certain extent like that of the Lycopodiacea:. The foliation of 

 Salisburia can only be compared with the fronds of Marsilia and of some 

 ferns {Schizetc, Adiantuni). 



t Their disposition always in continuous spirals, never in determinate 

 cycles (vcrticells) ; form more or less foliaceous and expanded ; anthersife- 

 rous thecse frequently numerous, whence a certain degree of resemblance 

 to the sporanziophorous traits of Lycopodium, the sporophylls of EquiseUm, 

 &c. 



