BOTANY. 



34U 



CLASS XXIV. CRYPTOGAMIA. 



Titr great length to which this article has al- 

 ready extended, would have obliged us, in treating 

 this class, to give merely the essential characters of 

 _ the numerous genera of which it is composed, and 

 to enumerate a few of the most interesting species. 

 From the great number of new genera, however, 

 which have been recently added to this class, and 

 from the impossibility of procuring at present the 

 foreign works in which they are contained, this list 

 f essential characters would have been so extremely 



imperfect, as to have rendered it absolutely necessary 

 to resume the subject in some future article. Under 

 these circumstances, we have thought it preferable 

 to refer this part of the Linnaean System to the article . 



CnYPTOGAMlA ; and in doing this, we seem to be sanc- 

 tioned by the example of the two latest and most ce- 

 lebrated systematic botanists, Willdenow and Persoon, 

 who have published the first twenty-three classes of 

 the system, and have not entered on the class Crypw- 

 gamia. 



REMARKS ON THE CLASSIFICATION. 



is IN the preceding Classification, we have adopted, 

 ' as the foundation of the article, the Species Planta- 

 tl> rum of Willdenow, and have added at the end of each 

 genus, with the mark *, the new species that have been 

 recently discovered, and at the end of each class the 

 new genera, or those which have been established or re- 

 formed by the latest writers on botany. Such of -our 

 readers as are at all acquainted with the immense variety 

 of works from which these newgeneraand species must 

 be obtained, with the difficulty of distinguishing spe- 

 cies which are frequently given under different names, 

 and with the mere mechanical labour of abridging 

 and condensing the materials which are thus collect- 

 ed, will, we trust, be able to appreciate the enormous 

 labour which has been bestowed on this part of the 

 article. To those general readers who may think 

 this article too long, we have only to say, that, in a 



rival Encyclopaedia, the classification occupies nearly Remarks 

 as much space, though it does not contain any of the ntncCla ' 

 new genera and species, and though, by a most sin- Slficat ' om ' 

 gular mistake, the factitious generic characters of the 

 last 22 classes are given instead of the essential charac- 

 ters. In another Encyclopedia, the article Botany, 

 written by one of the first botanists of the age, and 

 dispersed through the work, will occupy more than 

 tea times the space which it does in the preceding ar- 

 ticle. 



N. B. The mark ^ before the genera, indicates 

 that some of the species are natives of Great Britain. 

 Shrub, or Shr. denotes that the species to which it is 

 prefixed are shrubby, that is, are either shrubs or trees. 

 Ann. or An. signifies annual. Bien., biennial. And 

 Peren. or Per., perennial. 



OF THE CLASSIFICATION 





INDEX 



