711 



Now this is exactly the formula that I have already shown to 

 obtain in the Animal Kingdom ; and so convinced do I feel of its 

 truth that I look forward to the result of every investigation into 

 the detail of structure, as certain to furnish corroborative evidence. 

 I am unprepared to pursue the subject further than this, which may 

 be termed the mere threshold of the enquiry ; but sincerely do I 

 hope that others who are better botanists and better logicians than 

 myself will not allow the question to rest ; sincerely do I hope that 

 there are those amongst my readers who may not pin their faith on 

 the merits of a method however ingenious, merely because it happens 

 to be invented by a Ray, a Linneus, a Jussieu, a DeCandolle or a 

 Lindley ; but consider whether there be not a system-maker far above 

 these. And let me ask them whether it be not a worthier occupation 

 diligently to work out the details of that system which has existed from 

 the beginning, than to cavil about the merits of methods, the value of 

 which depends solely on the degree of assistance they may render us 

 in working out the "System of Nature." Edward Newman. 



Supplementary Note. By Mr. George Luxford, A.L.S., F.B.S.E., 



Lecturer on Botany at St. Thomas's Hospital, 



Having lately reviewed the subject of Rhizogens, as well as the 

 materials at my command will allow, I may venture to declare my 

 opinion that they must be regarded as an offshoot of Exogens, in op- 

 position to Lindley's supposition that they are Endogens, with which 

 I must confess I previously agreed ; but supposing them to be En- 

 dogenous, there would be a manifest want of a connecting link be- 

 tween Exogens and Thallogens, equivalent to the very evident tran- 

 sition from Exogens and Acrogens afforded by the Gymnogens, 

 and the equally strong connexion between Exogens and Endogens, 

 exhibited by Dictyogens. 



Before the nature of the rhizogens was so well understood as it 

 now is, they were by some botanists considered to be altogether of a 

 fungoid character. That they do actually partake, in a certain degree, 

 of the character of thallogens, there seems to be but little doubt ; 

 but it is also certain that their strong affinity with phsenogamous 

 plants is equally well established. They possess a distinct sexual 

 apparatus, more or less modified indeed, and in some genera of very 

 anomalous character, but apparently never so changed as that the 

 male and female organs cannot be readily distinguished. The an- 

 thers, in some, open by slits, in others by pores; their pollen has 



