82 FLOWERLESS PLANTS. [BOOK i. 



CHAPTER III. 



OF THE COMPOUND ORGANS IN FLOWERLESS PLANTS. 



General Considerations. 



IN the foregoing pages an attempt has been made to eluci- 

 date the true nature of the different organs which exist in 

 the most perfectly formed plants ; that is to say, in those 

 whose reproduction is provided for by the complicated appa- 

 ratus of stamens and pistils. We have now to examine the 

 analogies, if any, of those lower tribes, some of which are 

 scarcely distinguishable from animals, where there is no 

 evident trace of sexes, in which nothing constructed like the 

 embryo is to be detected, and which seem to have no other 

 provision made, in many cases, for the perpetuation of their 

 races than a dissolution of their cellular system. 



Although the general facts belonging to this subject will 

 be found in the Vegetable Kingdom, yet there are some cir- 

 cumstances not alluded to in that work, and others which 

 require an extended explanation, which can be best intro- 

 duced into this place as being of a supplementary and 

 explanatory nature. 



If the highest forms of flowerless plants are selected for 

 examination, they will be found to correspond very nearly 

 with many groups of Endogens; as, for example, when 

 Clubmosses (Lycopodiacese) are compared with Conifers, and 

 Ferns with Palms. And so, in like manner, if the lowest 

 forms of flowering plants are compared with flowerless species 

 Lemnads with Crystalworts (Bicciacese), or Podostemads 

 with Liverworts there will still be a great resemblance be- 

 tween them. But among flowerless plants there is a far 

 lower form of structure, with which flowering plants have 

 nothing comparable, where species are reduced to mere 

 threads, as in Confervas, or small clusters of cells, as in 



