THE NATURAL SYSTEM. 363 



cording to the received mode of classification, it will be more con- 

 venient to pursue the analytical course, and to show how the veg- 

 etable kingdom, taken as a whole, is divided and subdivided, by 

 regarding the points of difference. 



688. The general plan upon which the vegetable creation is 

 constituted, it has been the object of the whole former part of this 

 treatise to illustrate : the fundamental principles of natural history 

 classification have also been cursorily expounded in a preceding 

 chapter. In applying the one to the other, we have to consider, in 

 the first place, how the long series, reaching from the highest 

 Flowering plants to the lowest and minutest Fungi and Algae, can 

 be primarily divided. As already intimated, the most decided 

 break in the series occurs between the flower-bearing and the flow- 

 erless plants ; the first producing proper flowers (with stamens and 

 pistils) and seeds containing a ready formed embryo ; while in the 

 second, these are replaced by a more or less analogous, but sim- 

 pler and more recondite apparatus. We need only refer to .those 

 paragraphs in which the difference is brought to view (109, &c.). 

 The vegetable kingdom, viewed under this aspect, is therefore pri- 

 marily divided into two series, a higher and a lower, the FLOWER- 

 ING and the FLOWERLESS, or (under other and older names) the 

 PHJENOGAMOUS (or Phanerogamous) and the CRYPTOGAMOUS plants. 



689. Let us next consider how the higher series, embracing far 

 the larger part as well as the most complex forms of the vegetable 

 kingdom, may itself be divided, in view of the most general and 

 important points of difference which the plants it comprises exhibit. 

 Whenever they rise to arborescent forms, a difference in port and 

 aspect at once arrests attention ; that which distinguishes our com- 

 mon trees and shrubs from Palms and the like (Fig. 220). On 

 examination, this difference is found to be connected with an im- 

 portant difference in the structure of the stem or wood, and in its 

 mode of growth. The former present the exogenous, the latter the 

 endogenous structure or growth (184-187). This difference is 

 manifest, although not so striking, in the annual or herbaceous 

 stems of these two sorts of Phsenogamous plants. A difference is 

 also apparent in their foliage ; the former generally have reticu- 

 lated, or netted-veined, the latter parallel-veined leaves (276). 

 The leaves of the former usually fall off by an articulation ; those 

 of the latter decay on the stem (309, 310). The Phsenogamous 

 series, therefore, divides into two great classes, namely, into EXOGE- 



