SYNOPSIS 



OF THE 



CLASSES, SUB-CLASSES, COHOBTS AND ORDEES. 



(BY THE EDITOR.) 



; . ' 



THE following synopsis of the Orders is intended to facilitate reference to the detailed 

 descriptions contained in the body of this work, and to afford the student the means of 

 studying the subordination of characters for systematic purposes. The principal exceptions 

 are given to the diagnosis of the higher groups ; but the beginner must not expect to be 

 able to refer a Plant to its Order with much facility or any certainty, till he has laboriously 

 acquired a general insight into the principles and practice of classification. 



SUB-KINGDOM I. 

 PELENOGAMOUS, COTYLEDONOUS, OR FLOWEEING PLANTS. 



Plants furnished with flowers, normally composed of whorls of foliar organs, enclosing 

 stamens or ovules or both. Fertilization effected by the action of pollen-cells on the 

 nucleus of an ovule. Propagated by seeds. 



CLASS I. DICOTYLEDONS. 



Stem, when perennial, furnished with a pith, surrounded by concentric layers of wood, 

 and that by a separable bark. Leaves with usually netted venation. Floral whorls usually 

 in fours or fives, or multiples of those numbers. Embryo with two (sometimes connate) 

 cotyledons. In germination the radicle lengthens, and forks or branches. 



Sub-class I. Angiospermous. 



Ovules produced in a closed ovary, fertilized by the pollen-tube traversing a stigmatio 

 tissue to reach the cavity of the ovary, and hence the embyro-sac of the ovule. 



DIVISION I. POLYPETALOUS. 



Flowers with both a calyx and a corolla, the latter of separate petals. (See also the 

 exceptions to Monopetalous, p. 1005, and Apetalous, p. 1012, Divisions.) 



Exceptions. In the following Orders both apetalous flowers and flowers with connate petals occur : 

 Menispermeas, Caryophyllea, Malvaceae, Sterculiaceee, Tiliacea, Butaceee, Simarubeas, Surseracea, Olacinea;, 

 Celastrinece, Saxifragea, Crassulacece, Myrtacea, Passiflore<e. 



Apetalous flowers also occur in Banunculaccas, Magnoliacea, Berberidea, Sarraceniacea, Papaveraceos, 

 Crucifercs, Canellacece, Bixinea, Fiolariete, Zygophyllea, Geraniacea, Rhamnea, Sapindacea, Terebinthacea, 



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