2 CRYPTOGAMIA. 



he no impropriety in denominating the latter seeds, for the word 

 literally means the organized particles produced by plants in a 

 peculiar receptacle from which new plants of the same species are 

 generated, and has no reference to structure. And I the more 

 willingly use the term in the following pages, because the analogy 

 between buds and Cryptogamous seeds is somewhat doubtful. 

 The former are produced in no peculiar or appropriate organs, 

 nor are they the parts designed more particularly by nature to 

 continue the species ; but the latter are certainly thus designed, 

 they are lodged and matured in appropriate vessels, formed often 

 on a complex and always on a determinate plan. 



The class has been said to be a u truly natural" one ; but the 

 word natural must here be used in a peculiar sense, for the ma- 

 terials of which it is composed are of the most heterogeneous 

 character. The Mushroom surely has no relation with the Fern, 

 nor the Sea-weeds with the Moss, yet they are all Cryptogamous. 

 Even of the orders into which the class has been divided, it is, 

 perhaps, too much to say that they are natural. The Dorsiferous 

 Ferns and the Mosses are natural orders in the judgment of the 

 vulgar as well as of the botanist ; but if the latter will maintain 

 that the Fungi and Algae are natural groups, it is, I should think, 

 at the expense of common sense, which revolts from the decision. 

 These orders have no one character common to all their consti- 

 tuents ; and plants which differ both in their structure, appear- 

 ance, and mode of propagation, may be bound together by the 

 fancy of botanists, and for their convenience, but they are not the 

 less unnatural on that account. We are apt to deceive ourselves 

 in this. Practice has made us familiar with a certain classifica- 

 tion, and at last we find so little difficulty in referring any plant 

 to its order and place, that we persuade ourselves we do so from 

 some real resemblances between the plants, and consequently 

 that there must be something natural in our systems. But were 

 our first attempts remembered, how often they were abortive 

 and erroneous, or grounded on guess rather than on induction, I 

 am confident it would be admitted that our present facility is 

 solely the result of tutorage and practice, by which our associa- 

 tions have been made to run in an artificial channel. The prac- 

 tised botanist at once refers the moulds and the parasitical blights 

 of corn to the Mushroom tribe ; but do any others perceive any 

 .semblance between mushrooms and mould, or is there really any 



