PLANT-LIFEGENERATION. 59 



But the Composite is a very large family, 

 containing more than twelve thousand spe- 

 cies, as just stated. Which is the supreme 

 species? What flower shall we crown as 

 queen of the floral kingdom? Some have 

 chosen the sunflower, others the golden-rod, 

 still others the thistle, which has a high 

 inner association, and externally an all- 

 sided military armament coupled with ready 

 pugnacity. Still there seems to be no decided 

 supremacy anywhere, we find nothing in the 

 Plant-world to correspond to the superiority 

 of the genus homo among animals. As pre- 

 viously Indicated, the super-flower is yet to 

 be evolved, perchance by some Burbank with 

 his new art of controlling and improving flo- 

 ral evolution. 



Such, then, is in brief the organization of 

 total Plant-life, of which we may here give 

 a short synopsis. The first ordering is rep- 

 resented by three stages which are (A) Thal- 

 lophytes, (B) Bryophytes, (C) Cormophytes. 

 These last branch out into (I) Pteridophytes, 

 (II) Gymnosperms, (III) Angiosperms, 

 wherein the Plant-world has flowered. This 

 flowering division unfolds into the before- 

 mentioned forms: (1) axial, (2) cyclic, (3) 

 associative. So the entire Plant-world may 

 be likened to the tree (one of its shapes) 

 springing from unseen depths into the visible 



