194 



CLASS CRYPTOGAJIL'L 



LECTURE XXXVII. 



CLASS XXI. — CRYPTOGAMIA. 



Fig. 151. The twenty preceding classes include the 



Phenogamous plants ; we are now to con- 

 sider the Cryptogamous class ; — we here 

 find the stamens and pistils cither wholly 

 concealed from observation, or only mani- 

 fest upon the strictest scrutiny. These plants 

 constitute the first class of Jussieu's inethod 

 called acotyledonous ; their seed being des- 

 titute of any cotyledon. 



As we proceed in this last of the Linna;an 

 classes, we shall find all our former princi- 

 ples of arrangement fail us, and it might al- 

 most seem as if we had entered upon a new 

 science. The class Cryptogamia includes 

 all plants which do not find a place in some 

 of the other classes. 

 Ferns, mosses, lichens, and mushrooms, constitute the principal 

 part of this class. At Fig. 151, a, is a fern, of the genus Asplenium, 

 which bears its fruit on the back of the fronds ; at b, is a moss of the 

 genus Hypnum, showing two of its flowers borne on slender pedicels ; 

 at f, is a genus of the Lichen family ; at f/, is the Agaricus, one of 

 the most common of the mushrooms. 



Some writer has said, that Linnaeus, having arranged the plants 

 which would admit of classification, took the remainder and cast 

 them all into a heap together, which he called Cryptogamous ; — he 

 did not, however, rest satisfied in thus throwing them together, but 

 subdivided this miscellaneous collection into orders; or we might 

 more ]:iroperly say, that he gave names to those divisions already 

 marked out by nature. 



Of these orders, which are natural families brought together on 

 account of general resemblances and analogies, without reference 

 to any one principle, there are six. 



Order Filices, or Ferns. 



The 1st Order contains the Ferns; their plume-like leaves are 



Class Cryptogamia— Orders marked out by nature— Ferns. 



