76 THE GENERAL MORPHOLOGY OF THE PLANT. 



at length form a young plant, Phsenogamous plants are propagated 

 from seeds, which are more complex bodies, essentially character- 

 ized by having already formed within them, before they separate 

 from the mother plant, an EMBRYO, that is an organized plantlet, 

 which is only further developed in germination. 



111. In the lowest grade of Phsenogamous plants (viz. in the 

 Cycadacese, and in the Coniferse or Pine Family), the flowers are 

 of such extreme simplicity that they consist, some of a stamen 

 only, others of one or more naked ovules borne on the margins of 

 an evident leaf, as in Cycas, or on the base or inside of an altered, 

 scale-like leaf, as in the Pine Family. In the former, the ovules 

 answer to the spore-cases of Ferns ; * in the latter, to the spore- 

 cases of Club-Mosses ; thus confirming an analogy which is indi- 

 cated by general aspect between two of the higher families of 

 Cryptogamous, and the lowest two of Phsenogamous plants. These 

 are Gymnospermous (that is, naked-seeded) Phsenogamous plants. 

 In all the rest, the ovules are perfectly inclosed in the pistil, which 

 forms a pod or closed covering of some sort for the seeds ; they 

 are accordingly distinguished by the name of Angiospermous (that 

 is, covered-seeded) Phsenogamous plants. Their flowers in the 

 simplest cases consist, one sort of a stamen only, the other of a 

 pistil only ; but as we rise in the scale, these organs tend to multi- 

 ply ; to be combined so as to have both kinds in the same flower ; 

 to be protected or adorned with a circle of peculiar leaves (the 

 CALYX), or with two such circles (CALYX and COROLLA), of which 

 the inner is commonly more delicate in texture and of brighter 

 color. Thus, the completed flower exhibits the ORGANS OF RE- 

 PRODUCTION in their most perfect form. 



112. The Organs of Vegetation also exhibit their most perfect 

 development in Phsenogamous plants. The three kinds, root, stem, 

 and leaves, are almost always well defined. In a few exceptional 

 cases, however, we have frondose forms ; as in the Duck-weed 

 (Fig. 96), where stem and leaf are fused together into a green flat 

 body which floats on the water, emitting roots from the lower sur- 

 face and exposing the upper like a leaf to the light. So, true 

 leaves scarcely appear in the Cactus Family, where the green 



*I shall in another place have a better occasion for indicating an analogy, 

 hitherto unnoticed, between the typical sporangium of Ferns (viz. that with 

 an incomplete vertical ring) and the anatropal ovule. 



