ORDER CXLII. FILICES. ORDER CXLV. HEPATICJS. 



131 



ORDER CXLII. Filices. 



Leafy plants with perennial, creeping rhizomas, rarely, in the 

 tropics, arborescent, with the leafy expansions (fronds) usually 

 circinate in vernation. Inflorescence arising on the margins of 

 the under or back part of the frond, which is sometimes leafy, 



Fig. 48. 



and sometimes contracted and racemose, or spike-like. Sporan- 

 gia 1-celled, opening variously, often collected m son, or fruit- 

 dots, which arise from the veins or margins of the frond, and 

 often covered by an involucre, or indusium. 



Fig. 49. 



A very large order of flowerless plants distinguished usually by their ele 

 ant and oraceful forms. One of the beautiful Tree Ferns of the Tropics is re 

 resented in fi". 49, while the humbler forms of the Temperate Zones ar 



lustrated by Asplenium Filix foemina, fig. 49, and by A. ebeneum, fig. 50. 

 n flg. 49, a segment of the frond, with the sori, is also represented. 



Fig. 50. 



ORDER CXLIII. Lycopodiacese. 



Plants with creeping, or erect leafy, and usually branching 

 stems. Leaves crowded, lanceolate, or subulate, 1-nerved. Thecse 

 sessile in the axils of the leaves, which sometimes take the form 

 of bracts, and are crowded into a kind of spike, or ament, 1, 

 rarely 2 or 3-celled, dehiscent, either containing minute powdery 

 grains, or else a few large sporules ; sometimes both kinds are 

 found in the same plant. 



The various species of Lycopodium (Club-mosses), are examples of this 

 small and unimportant order. 



CLASS IV. ANOPHYTES. 



Plants consisting almost entirely of cellular tissue, but usually 

 distinguishable into a stem and distinct leaves, and displaying a 

 regular axis of growth ; sometimes, however, they take the form 

 of a flat, veiny, green, somewhat leaf-like expansion. Organs of 

 reproduction contained in distinct organs distantly resembling 

 flowers, rarely immersed in the frond. 



ORDER OXLIV. Musci. 



Low plants with a stem and distinct sessile leaves, producing 

 sporangia, which are usually covered by a terminal lid, and a 

 kind of hood, called a calyptra, which separates from the stalk at 

 base. A common form of Moss is seen in fig. 20, Plate III., and 

 the capsule with its calyptra and its porous summit, by which it 

 scatters the spores, is well represented in fig. 11. 



ORDER CXLV. Hepaticae. 



Frondose or moss-like plants, with a loose cellular, veiny 

 structure, usually procumbent, producing rootlets beneath. Cap- 



