TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 



The work of which the following pages contain a trans- 

 lation has not yet been published in Germany, and a few 

 words are necessary to explain its nature and origin. It 

 is founded mainly upon the author's well-known treatise on 

 the higher Cryptogamia, which appeared at Leipzig in 

 1851. ShiGe that period Dr. Hofmeister has continued 

 his valuable researches, and the results of his observations 

 have been published in the 4th and 5th volumes of the 

 'Transactions of the Royal Academy of Saxony,' in the 

 Reports of the same Academy for' the year 1854, and in 

 the ' Regensburg Flora ' for the same year. In addition 

 to the matter relating to the Cryptogamia, the original 

 treatise also contained some remarks on the fructification 

 of the Coniferee, and on the analogies between the sexual 

 phenomena in mosses and vascular cryptogams on the one 

 side, and the conifers on the other. Dr. Hofmeister 

 has since published further observations upon this latter 

 subject in the ' Regensburg Flora' for 1854, and in the 

 first volume of ' Prino'sheim's Jahrbucher fur wissen- 

 schaftliche Botanik.' 



At the request of the Council of the Ray Society, and 



