248 Field, Forest, and Wayside Flowers 



ovules and pollen, are called "phanerogams," the 

 term being derived from two Greek words which 

 mean a visible or apparent marriage. 



It was long suspected that among flowerless 

 plants also the new individual was born as the re- 

 sult of the union of two parent-cells, but with the 

 imperfect microscopes of former times this union 

 could not be seen in detail, and the facts concern- 

 ing it could never be accurately learned. 



So all the series of the flowerless plants, among 

 which are numbered lichens, seaweeds, mosses, 

 liverworts, horsetails, and ferns, were named "cryp- 

 togams," from two Greek terms, which mean a 

 hidden marriage. 



But little is hidden by mere minuteness from 

 the modern compound-microscope, diid though 

 some of the smallest cryptogams tha microbes 

 and bacteria have "ways that are dark' 5 still, the 

 life-history of the mosses, liverworts, horsetails, 

 and ferns is now accurately known. 



The differences between these two great series 

 of plants the flowering and the flowerless are 

 sharply defined at the very beginning of their 

 histories. In the ripe seed the little plant is al- 

 ready formed. 



It lies snugly folded into the smallest possible 



