CONCLUSION 229 



that it must have had some degree of kinship 

 with the Vascular Cryptogams. The presence of 

 typical stomata, like those of the higher plants, on 

 the fruit of many Mosses and a few Liverworts is 

 a character pointing to their origin from some 

 highly-organised group of plants. The absence of 

 any geological evidence, however, makes the 

 question of the origin of Bryophytes an almost 

 hopeless one. 



We must now leave the consideration of special 

 lines of evolution, and endeavour, as briefly as 

 possible, to draw one or two conclusions of a more 

 general kind from the facts before us. 



The first and most obvious result of our in- 

 quiries is to prove the enormous antiquity of 

 highly-organised plants. If a botanist were set 

 to examine, without prejudice, the structure of 

 those Devonian plants which have come down 

 to us in a fit state for such investigation, it would 

 probably never occur to him that they were any 

 simpler than plants of the present day; he would 

 find them different in many ways, but about 

 on the same general level of organisation. Within 

 the period from the Devonian age to our own 

 time organisation is not shown to have "largely 

 advanced," though there have been many changes. 

 It is not contended that there has been no ad- 

 vance; the special adaptations of the Flowering 



