252 THE BIOCOSMOS PARTICULARIZED. 



though they too will show their own evolu- 

 tionary ascent. The Angiosperms are sup- 

 posed to contain more than 125,000 species, a 

 number, probably thirty times greater than 

 all the other Cormophytes combined. The 

 most useful, the most beautiful, the most ad- 

 vanced Plants, from the human point of view, 

 are embraced in the present division; also 

 they are the most conspicuous and self-dis- 

 playing. A salient phase of their total char- 

 acter is just this manifestation; it may well 

 be deemed that the floral soul, hitherto quite 

 implicit has now come to self-revelation. 

 Hence they were called Phanerogams by the 

 older botanists, who in a number of ways 

 were closer to Nature than some modern ones 

 (of the University Laboratory) who are try- 

 ing to drive the name out of the science. It 

 may be granted that it is not easy to define, 

 What is a flower? over which question bot- 

 anists have larruped one another and their 

 much-enduring readers. Yet the prime fact 

 is that the whole Plant-world has now flow- 

 ered ; hitherto dumb it has attained a kind of 

 language; hitherto vegetally unconscious, it 

 has now come to a kind of floral consciousness 

 (though different enough from the human). 

 Indeed we may put together for the sake of 

 comparing the two great kingdoms, the vege- 

 tal and the animal, the corresponding rungs 



