2 L 20 VEGETABLE ORGANOGRAPHY. 



gamous ones, of which we have been speaking, and 

 Cryptogamous ones, which we are about to study in 

 this Chapter. 



Some naturalists, struck with the extreme difference 

 of these two classes, and believing that all plants, which 

 did not present a flower formed as in ordinary ones, had 

 really no flower, but were reproduced by simple unfe- 

 cundated germs, have given collectively to these plants 

 the names of Agamm or Inembryone^e ; others, struck 

 with the fact that their reproductive bodies were formed 

 without apparent cotyledons, have designated them by 

 the name of Acotyledons. Some, admitting the ex- 

 istence, in these plants, of fecundating organs, but per- 

 ceiving their difference from those of phanerogamous 

 ones, have named them iETHEOGAMyE. Lastly, there are 

 some, as Gaertner and Borckhausen, who have desig- 

 nated them by the name of Aphrodites, in order to 

 make it understood that they have, it is true, fecundated 

 seeds, but that the fecundating fluid has no peculiar ap- 

 paratus, and is secreted by the same organs, or in the 

 same cavities, as those in which the ovules are found. 



But all these terms, although admitted by distin- 

 guished naturalists, are less generally used than that of 

 Cryptogamous plants, which Linnaeus very felicitously 

 gave to this class of plants, and which is peculiarly 

 applicable to them. This term indicates that the organs 

 of fructification are not visible to the naked eye. 



The name of Agamaa, which affirms the non-existence 

 of fructifying organs, and the absence of all fecundation, 

 probably expresses that which is not exactly true. 



Perhaps it will one day be necessary to divide these 

 plants into two classes: — 1st. Cryptogamae, properly so 

 called, where fecundation is performed, although by 

 organs scarcely if at all visible to the naked eye ; and 

 2d, true Agamae, which have no fecundation : but if, in 



