25* 



FLOWERLESS OR CRYPTOGAMIC PLANTS. 



Thus far I have avoided reference to those plants which 

 are commonly regarded as flowerless, and which have 

 long been classed together under the general term of 

 Cryptogams, from the apparent absence of organs corre- 

 sponding to the stamens and pistil of the plants which 

 have hitherto occupied our attention. 



I have passed these plants by because, from the con- 

 siderable difference which obtains between their structure 

 (both of the Reproductive and of the Nutritive organs) 

 and that of Flowering Plants, they cannot be conveniently 

 studied together. Any study, however, of the Vegetable 

 Kingdom from which they are wholly excluded must be 

 exceedingly incomplete ; and now that facility in observ- 

 ing has been acquired, attention may be directed to these 

 so-called lower plants, with a fair chance of comprehend- 

 ing the relation in which they stand to the Flowering 

 Plants already familiar to us, and of mastering a few of 

 the principal features of their leading Families. 



The more logical course might seem to be to study first 

 these simple forms, and progress from them to the more 

 complicated, to which latter we have hitherto confined 

 our attention ; but, the excessive minuteness of their 

 essential organs requiring the constant use of high 

 magnifying power in their observation, it is practically 

 the best plan to leave them to the last, in a course 

 of Elementary Botany like the present. 



Space compels me to be brief in describing Crypto- 

 gams ; and those who desire to extend their acquaintance 

 with them I must refer to the chapters on Cryptogams in 

 the " Outlines" of Professor Goebel, of which there is an 

 English translation. 



The development of the embryo in Flowering Plants, 

 we have seen, depends upon and immediately follows the 

 mingling by diffusion of the contents of two distinct cells 

 belonging to organs conspicuously contrasted morpho- 



