dream of answering it off-hand. It may be partially true or 

 not, but the evidence at present available cannot be con- 

 sidered as warranting a verdict that will satisfy everybody. 

 The solution, if solution there be, must he in the fossil-bearing 

 strata. If the record of those strata be accepted as hopelessly 

 imperfect, it seems almost useless even to discuss a problem 

 for which sufficient data are wanting. But it may be ques- 

 tioned whether the geological record can fairly be considered 

 as uniformly imperfect, at any rate, to such an extent as to 

 preclude any inferences for or against Evolution. It is from 

 this point of view that I propose briefly to set before the 

 Institute the facts of Fossil Botany in their bearing upon the 

 Theory of Descent. 



2. Divisions of the Vegetable Kingdom. But before entering 

 upon the subject it will be useful briefly to indicate the prin- 

 ciples upon which the larger groups or sub-kingdoms of the 

 vegetable world are constituted. It would be rash to take 

 for granted any general acquaintance with the subject, as 

 Botany has always had less attraction for the outside public 

 than her zoological sister ; and this assertion may be extended 

 to Fossil Botany. The extinct races of plants have no sur- 

 prises for the untrained eye so great as the monstrous Icthyo- 

 saur or the weird Pterodactyl, no series of forms so splendid 

 as the long array of Ammonites and Encrinites. Some 

 acquaintance with insignificant plants still living is required 

 before the mind grasps the meaning of Club-mosses and 

 Horse-tails, which reached the stature of forest trees, or 

 understands that in their way they are as surprising as 

 the giant Sloth or the Mastodon. 



Plants are divided, in the first place, into two vast series, 

 those with and those without flowers, Phanerogams and 

 Cryptogams. Old and obvious as is this distinction, it is 

 eminently natural. Not only does it still hold good, but is, if 

 possible, only brought out into stronger relief by our increase 

 of knowledge. A wide gulf still yawns between the seed- 

 bearing Phanerogam and the spore-producing Cryptogam. 

 The assertion that it is at all affected by modern research is at 

 variance with obvious facts. True seeds, containing an embryo 

 plant with rudimentary axis and appendages, are strictly con- 

 fined to Phanerogams, and are exclusively the result of the 

 fertilisation of ovules by pollen-grains through the immediate 

 agency of the air. On the other hand, fertilisation, properly 

 so called, in Cryptogams invariably demands the presence of 

 water, and never results in a seed. Again, the asexual spore 

 so frequent in Cryptogams is totally absent from Phanerogams; 

 in the fern, for instance, it is the antherozoids of the prothallus 



