8o 



THE HISTORY OF CREATION, 



cells, which is called a lobe, or thallus. This thallus is as 

 yet not differentiated into axial-organs (stem and root) and 

 leaf-organs. On this account, as well as through many 

 other peculiarities, the Thallophytes contrast strongly with 

 all remaining plants — those comprised under the two sub- 

 kingdoms of Prothallus plants and Flowering plants — and 

 for this reason the two latter sub-kingdoms are frequently 

 classed together under the name of Stemmed plants, or 

 Cormophytes. The following table will explain the relation 

 of these three sub-kingdoms to one another according to the 

 two different views : — 



I. Flowerless Plants. 

 (Cryptogamia) 



II. Flowering Plants 

 l^Fhanerogamia) 



I' A. Thallus Plants \ 

 (Thallophyta) 1 



B. Prothallus Plants 

 (Prothallophyta) 



C. Flowering Plants 

 (Phanerogamia) 



I. Thallus Plants 

 {Thallophyta) 



II. Stemmed Plants 

 {Cormophyta) 



The stemmed plants, or Cormophytes, in the organization 

 of which the difference of axial-organs (stem and root) and 

 leaf-organs is already developed, form at present, and have, 

 indeed, for a very long period formed, the principal portion 

 of the vegetable world. However, this was not always the 

 case. In fact, stemmed plants, not only of the flowering 

 group, but even of the prothallus group, did not exist at all 

 during that immeasurably long space of time which forms 

 the beginning of the fu'st great division of the organic 

 history of the earth, under the name of the archihthic, or 

 primordial period. The reader will recollect that during this 

 period the Laurentian, Cambrian, and Silurian systems of 

 strata were deposited, the thickness of which, taken as a whole, 



