80 THE HISTORY OF CREATION, 
cells, which is called a lobe, or thallus. This thallus is as 
yet not differentiated into axial-organs (stem and root) and 
leaf-organs. On this account, as well as through many 
other peculiarities, the Thallophytes contrast strongly with 
all remaining plants—those comprised under the two sub- 
kingdoms of Prothallus plants and Flowermg plants—and 
for this reason the two latter sub-kingdoms are frequently 
classed together under the name of Stemmed plants, or 
Cormophytes. The following table will explain the relation 
of these three sub-kingdoms to one another according to the 
two different views :— 
A Thales Plana | I. Thallus Plants 
I. Flowerless Plants. (Thallophyta) (Thallophyta) 
Cryptogania 
(Cryptog ) B. Prothallus Plants 
(Prothallophyta) II. Stemmed Plants 
(Cormophyta) 
(Phanerogamia) 
II. Flowering Plants C. Flowering Plants 
(Phanerogamia) 
The stemmed plants, or Cormophytes, in the organization 
of which the difference of axial-organs (stem and root) and 
leaf-organs is already developed, form at present, and have, 
indeed, for a very long period formed, the principal portion 
of the vegetable world. However, this was not always the 
-case. In fact, stemmed plants, not only of the flowering 
group, but even of the prothallus group, did not exist at all 
during that immeasurably long space of time which forms 
the beginning of the first great division of the organic 
history of the earth, under the name of the archilithie, or 
primordial period. The reader will recollect that during this 
period the Laurentian, Cambrian, and Silurian systems of 
strata were deposited,the thickness of which, taken asa whole, 
