PHTTOLOGY. 285 



1517. The higher plants differ from the lower by 

 the interposition of new organs between the two terminal 

 organs, namely, the primary vesicle and the true seed. 

 It may be said, that the asexual plant is naught but 

 seed, and that the seed^of the higher plants is a fungus 

 upon a leafy peduncle, a fungus more highly organized 

 by light. 



1518. The asexual plants have no true root, stalk, 

 and leaf; they have not even a true bark, liber, and 

 wood, in so far as these first make their appearance 

 through separation. Tracheae are first exhibited in the 

 higher ferns, and then only as constituting a single string, 

 which occupies the middle of the plant, and consequently 

 forms no circle or zone. 



1519. As again the true seed is a leaf-formation, and 

 possesses therefore cotyledons or seed-lobes, such seeds 

 must be wanting in the asexual plants ; they are therefore 

 Acotyledones. From the same cause, however, the ger- 

 minal leaves or plumula must be also wanting ; they are 

 therefore germless, or anembryonic. 



1520. The farinaceous or granular matter, lying next 

 to the germ when within the shell of the true seeds, is 

 called the albumen or perisperm ; the seeds of the 

 asexual plants are therefore nothing else but albumen. 

 They are therefore devoid of the funiculus or, what has 

 been called, umbilical cord. 



1521. The involucre, wherein, in true seeds, the germ 

 and albumen are found, is the seed-coat or testa ; 

 consequently what has been called the capsule of the 

 asexual plants (of mosses and ferns) corresponds simply to 

 this spermoderm or seed-covering, and is no true ovarium. 

 The capsules of mosses and ferns are therefore seeds full 

 of albuminous dust. 



1522. If any of these be regarded as a capsule, it can 

 be the calyptra of the mosses. This, too, is probably 

 nothing else than the extemal testa ; the proper capsule 

 being its internal coat. 



1523. The indusium of ferns incloses several capsules 



