14 INTRODUCTION TO CRYPTOGAMIC BOTANY. 



ceptions ; the term Homorgana is synonymous with Cellu- 

 lares; the term Nemeca* applied by Fries, aUudes to the fact 

 that the spores germinate by means of a protruded thread 

 without any indications of Cotyledons, but there are many of 

 the lower AlgiB in which the spores can scarcely be said to 

 germinate at all, and certainly protrude no thread, and the 

 spores of the higher Cryptogams are altogether anomalous, 

 so that the term is not more strictly definite than others; 

 S'poro[)liovcii and Sporideoi indicate the nature of their organs 

 of reproduction, which, as being destitute of an embryo (a cir- 

 cumstance not without exception) are no true seeds ; AnanthcB 

 is the same with Flowerless, a term often applied to Crypto- 

 gams, and only applicable when the word flower is made to 

 include stamens and pistils as well as floral envelopes, for these 

 latter exist certainly in mosses and liverworts ; the word Acro- 

 gens indicates the apical mode of gi'owth, which is not however 

 an universal character ; and finally, that of Favi, except it be 



* Fries, in his Systema Orbis Vegetabilis, states that four general 

 names, may be given according as the different phases of vegetable life 

 are taken into consideration. Thus, according to germination, they 

 are Nemea, gei'minating, that is, by a thread, and not by a radicle com- 

 posed of a cellular system with one or more cotyledons ; according to 

 vegetation they are Cellularia, as in the gi-eater number of species there 

 is no vascular tissue ; according to the mode of flowering they are 

 Cryptogama ; and according to their fruit, Sporidea, destitute of an 

 embryo. Fries then gives his reasons for preferring the word Nemea 

 to Acotyledonea : 1. Negative determinations are always of an inferior 

 rank, and must give way to positive when accurately determined. 2. 

 The necessity of the word for the formation of the terms Homonemeoe 

 and Heteronemecp, descriptive of the two gi*eat divisions of cry^itogamic 

 plants. 3. Analogy ; as, for instance, Evascularia is not to be preferred 

 to Cellularia. 4. Because of its greater precision, for true Acotyledonous 

 plants exist amongst Phfenogams, as Cuscuta. The progress of science, 

 however, will always indicate exceiDtions to any term which may be 

 invented. Xew terms, however excellent, always produce a certain 

 degree of opposition at first, and are at length unwillingly received. 

 If the present work were published under the title of an Introduction 

 to Nemeous Botany, half the world would not known what was meant, 

 and the other half would set the writer down as a pedant of the first 

 water, inter omnes res maxime vitandus. 



