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The collection of flowerless plants was described in the June 
number of the Journal for 1901. As compared with the four 
subkingdoms of the flowerless plants, the flowering plants com- 
prise a single subkingdom, technically called the Spermatophyta, 
or the seed-bearing plants. However, this single subkingdom 
divides into two sharply defined groups, namely, the cone-bear- 
ing plants, or Gymnosperms, represented by the conifers, or the 
shrubs and trees commonly called evergreens, and the fruit- 
bearing plants, or the Angiosperms, represented by the herba- 
ceous vegetation and the deciduous-leaved shrubs and trees. 
Like their relatives, the higher group of flowerless plants, the 
cone-bearing plants in an early geological age were the more 
prominent seed-bearing representatives of the vegetable kingdom, 
but in a later age, as in the present one, the cone-bearing plants 
apparently began to decrease and the fruit-bearing plants came to 
predominate; consequently the present representatives of the 
cone-bearing plants may be considered a remnant of a once dom- 
inant group in the plant kingdom. 
The herbarium was described in the March number of this 
Journat for 1900. At the time that description appeared all the 
herbarium specimens at the Garden, of both the flowerless and 
flowering plants, were arranged in the main herbarium room 
referred to in a former paragraph. Now a half dozen other 
rooms on the top floor of the Museum Building are devoted in 
whole or in part to the flowerless plants, while the flowering 
plants alone occupy the cases in the main herbarium room. e 
growth of the herbarium has resulted in about an equal division 
of the two main groups of plants as far as the case room they 
occupy is concerned, the flowerless and the flowering plants each 
occupying cases with a total of over five thousand pigeon holes, 
while fruits and seeds and other objects too bulky to be placed 
on herbarium sheets are contained in cabinets at the southern 
end of the herbarium room. 
The herbarium of flowering plants is made up of the her- 
barium of Columbia University, including the Torrey Her- 
barium, the Meissner Herbarium, and the Chapman Herbarium, 
together with miscellaneous sets of specimens, and the Garden 
