CHAPTER XVIL 
PEDIGREE AND HISTORY OF THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 
The Natural System of the Vegetable Kingdom.—Division of the Vege- 
table Kingdom into Six Branches and Eighteen Classes.— The 
Flowerless Plants (Cryptogamia)—Sub-kingdom of the Thallus 
Plants.—The Tangles, or Alge (Primary Algze, Green Algz, Brown 
Algz, Red Algsz.)—The Thread-plants, or Inophytes (Lichens and 
Fungi.)—Sub-kingdom of the Prothallus Plants——The Mosses, or 
Muscinze (Water-mosses, Liverworts, Leaf-mosses, Bog-mosses).—The 
Ferns, or Filicinee (Leaf-ferns, Bamboo-ferns, Water-ferns, Scale- 
ferns).—Sub-kingdom of Flowering Plants (Phanerogamia).—The 
Gymnosperms, or Plants with Naked Seeds (Palm-ferns = Cycadez ; 
Pines = Coniferze.)—The Angiosperms, or Plants with Enclosed Seeds. 
—Monocotyle.—Dicotyle.—Cup-blossoms (Apetale).—Star-blossoms 
(Diapetalze).—Bell-blossoms (Gamopetalz). 
EveErY attempt that we make to gain a knowledge of the 
pedigree of any small or large group of organisms related 
by blood must, in the first instance, start with the evi- 
dence afforded by the existing “natural system” of this 
group. For although the natural system of animals and 
plants will never become finally settled, but will always 
represent a merely approximate knowledge of true blood 
relationship, still it will always possess great import- 
ance as a hypothetical pedigree. It is true, by a “natural 
system” most zoologists and botanists only endeavour to 
express in a Concise way the subjective conceptions which 
