234 FOUNDATIONS OF BOTANY 



The angiosperms constitute the great majority of seed- 

 plants (or, as they have been more commonly called, 

 flowering plants). Only one family of gymnosperms (the 

 Coniferce) is described in Part III of this book, though 

 there are other families of great interest to the botanist, 

 but with no representatives growing wild in the Northern 

 United States. 



When people who are not botanists speak of plants 

 they nearly always mean angiosperms. This class is more 

 interesting to people at large than any other, not only on 

 account of the comparatively large size and the con- 

 spicuousness of the members of many families, but also 

 on account of the attractiveness of the flowers and fruit 

 of many. Almost all of the book which precedes the 

 present chapter (except Chapter XII) has been occupied 

 with seed-plants. 



Seed-plants of both classes frequently offer striking 

 examples of adaptation to the conditions under which 

 they live, and these adaptations have lately received much 

 study, and are now treated as a separate department of 

 botany (see Part II). 



