OEDER CXLII. FILICES. ORDER CXLV. HEPATIOE. 



131 



ORDER CXLIL Filices. 



Leafy plants with perennial, creeping rhizomas, rarely, in ^ 

 tropics, arborescent, with the leafy expansions (fronds) usually 

 circinate in vernation. Inflorescence arising on the margins o 

 the under or back part of the frond, which is sometimes leafy 



Fig.4a 



and sometimes contracted and racemose, or spike-like. Sporan- 

 gia 1-celled, opening variously, often collected in sori, or fruit- 

 dots, which arise from the veins or margins of the frond, and 

 olten covered by an involucre, or indusium. 



Fig. 49. 



A very large order of flowerless plants, distinguished usually by their ele- 

 gant and graceful forms. One of the beautiful Tree Ferns of the Tropics is re- 

 presented in fig. 43, vrhile the humbler forms of the Temperate Zones are 



illustrated by Asplenium Filix fomina, fig. 49, and by A. ebeneum, fiir. BO. 

 In fig. 49, a segment of the frond, with the sori, is also represented. 



Fig. 60, 



ORDER CXLIII. Lycopodiaceas. 



Plants with creeping, or erect leafy, and usually branching 

 stems. Leaves crowded, lanceolate, or subulate, 1-nerved. Thecsa 

 sessile in the axils of the leaves, which sometimes take the form 

 of bracts, and are crowded into a kind of spike, or ament, 1, 

 rarely 2 or 3-celled, dehiscent, either containing minute powdery 

 pains, or else a few large sporules ; sometimes both kinds are 

 'ound in the same plant. 



The various species of Lycopodium (Club-mosses), are examples of this 

 small and unimportant order. 



CLASS IV. ANOPHYTES. 



Plants consisting almost entirely of cellular tissue, but usually 

 distinguishable into a stem and distinct leaves, and displaying a 

 regular axis of growth ; sometimes, however, they take the form 

 of a flat, veiny, green, somewhat leaf-like expansion. Organs of 

 reproduction contained in distinct organs distantly resembling 

 lowers, rarely immersed in the frond. 



ORDER CXLIV Musci. 



Low plants with a stem and distinct sessile leaves, producing 

 iporangia, which are usually covered by a terminal lid, and a 

 and of hood, called a calyptra, which separates from the stalk at 

 >ase. A common form of Moss is seen in fig. 20, Plate III., and 

 ,he capsule with its calyptra and its porous summit, by which it 

 catters the spores, is well represented in fig. 11. 



ORDER CXLV. HepaticaB. 



Frondose or moss-like plants, with a loose cellular, veiny 

 tructure, usually procumbent, producing rootlets beneath. Cap- 



