genus Noggerathia to Living Planis. 101 
many of the fossil plants cannot be classed in families at present 
existing, and ought to constitute new groups of equal importance. 
The Calamites, Lepidodendra, Sigillaria,and Asterophyllee, arethus 
situated ; several less well-known genera should probably also be 
raised to the rank of distinct families. But above the families 
are the classes and the large divisions of the vegetable kingdom, 
and it might be asked whether those families which are peculiar 
to the primitive vegetation of the globe, and which are so dif- 
ferent from those which now inhabit it, would enter into the 
present great divisions of the vegetable kingdom, or whether 
some of them should be referred to one of an entirely distinct 
nature, as it were, foreign to the great types of living vegetable 
organization. This important question cannot probably be solved 
with certainty in the present state of our knowledge of these 
fossils. However, all the observations which have hitherto been 
made appear to show that the earlier creation must be referred 
to the principal types of the present creation, but without pre- 
senting examples of themall. Thus the present vegetable king- 
dom presents five great divisions: the Cellular Cryptogamia or 
Amphigens, the Vascular Cryptogamia or Acrogens, the Dico- 
tyledonous Phanerogamia, Gymnospermia and Angiospermia, and 
the Monocotyledonous Phanerogamia. The first three of these 
great divisions undoubtedly existed at the period of the coal-for- 
mation, whilst the two latter appear to have been completely 
absent ; at least, we have no positive evidence of their existence ; 
whilst, on the other hand, everything tends to render it doubtful. 
On this point recent researches have merely confirmed what I 
established more than twenty years-ago, 7. e. the absence of the 
angiospermous dicotyledonous Phanerogamia, and even that of 
the monocotyledons, the existence of which then appeared to me 
very doubtful. But new and hitherto very rare specimens which 
have been collected and carefully studied in England, Germany 
and France have caused important changes relative to the plants 
which I had considered as Acrogens or vascular Cryptogamia. 
This advance is owing to the discovery of portions of stems of 
these plants with the internal structure in a state of preservation. 
They have shown that the Sigillarie, Stigmaria, and probably 
most of the Calamites, are not plants nearly related to the Ferns, 
Lycopodia and Equiseta, but to distinct families of the dicoty- 
ledonous gymnospermous group, more nearly approaching the 
Conifere and Cycadee. 
Hence, at the period of the coal-formation, vegetation would have 
consisted entirely, or nearly so, of two of the great divisions of the 
. vegetable kingdom: the acrogenous Cryptogamia, represented 
by the herbaceous and arborescent Ferns (the latter reduced to 
the true Caulopteris), the Lepidodendree, a family nearly re- 
