MANUAL OF BOTANY 



Fig. i:i 



sometimes even as much as forty feet, bearing on their summit 

 a large tuft of leaves, or, as they are commonly called, fronds, 

 a term applied to leaves which, like thos§ of Ferns, bear organs 

 of reproduction. 



In all the plants above mentioned 

 we have no evident flowers, as in the 

 higher plants ; hence they have been 

 called Cry2)togains or Flowerless 

 Plants. They are especially charac- 

 terised by not producing the special 

 structures known as seeds. 



All plants above the Cryptogams, 

 from possessing evident flowers, are 

 termed Phanerogams, or Flowering 

 Plants. These latter plants are 

 marked off from all the lower forms 

 by bearing seeds. 



The Phanerogams present two 

 well-marked divisions, called respec- 

 tively the Angiospermia and Oymno- 

 spermia: the former including those 

 plants in which the seeds originate in 

 a case called an ovary {fig. 398, o, o) ; 

 and the latter, such plants as the Fir 

 and Larch, in which they do not. In 

 the Phanerogams we have the highest 

 and most perfect forms of plants. 



A survey of the forms presented 

 by the various plants constituting the 

 vegetation of the globe shows us thus 

 an extraordinary variety in external 

 shape, in actual dimensions, and in 

 peculiarities of internal structure. 

 The simplest with which we are 

 familiar exhibit only a roundish or 

 ovoid body, with no differentiation of 

 parts, consisting only of a minute 

 mass of living'substance, orprotoplasm, 

 which may or may not be surrounded 

 by a definite limiting membrane or cell- wall. Each plant is 

 said to consist of a single cell. Generally, however, with larger 

 size we find the living substance consisting of a number of 

 cells, separated by partition walls. These are, in some cases, 



Fig. 13, The Male Fern 

 (Aspidium Fili.r-man), 



