CLASSIFICATION. 



In the Flora of a country or district it is customary to include only the races of 

 plants that have developed true flowers, the races that stand in an intermediate 

 position with their floral elements defined, but still dispersed or collected in 

 cones (as in the Lycopods and Conifers and the more elaborated branch of 

 Cryptogams), the Ferns that bear no flowers in the true sense, but whose principal 

 development bears spores only. 



The term flower is sometimes applied to the gametic reproductive organs 

 of Cryptogams. This is not an exact use of the term. The name 

 flower was given to and is considered to denote any specialised 

 aggregation of foliar members on or about some of which are developed 

 the organs that produce the spores in which takes place the rudimentary 

 development that is homologous with the whole gametophytic 

 generation of the Cryptogams. 



The following is the scheme and definitions of the plants described : — 

 ANGIOSPERMS. — Plants in which the ovules are developed in more or less 

 closed sacks. The spore-bearing members, the stamens and pistil, are in typical 

 instances gathered into clusters surrounded by much-altered leaves, the whole 

 specialised mass being termed a flower. In many primitive forms this type- 

 condition has not been reached, in others various reductions from the perfect 

 condition of the flower have taken place. But however much the flower may be 

 Bimplified, there are no Angiosperms that stand on the border-land of this and 

 any other division. The division is well-marked and circumscribed. 



This division is composed of two very distinct and well marked classes. 



Class I.— DICOTYLEDONS. 

 Class %.— MONOCOTYLEDONS. 



Dicotyledons, generally termed the Higher Flowering Plants, from their 

 tissues and members having attained a more complex structure. The leaves are 

 often very varied in shape, with the smaller vascular bundles forming a more or 

 less intricate net of meshes in the green substance of the leaf, though in some 

 few plants, e.f. Epacridaceee, the veins are all or mostly parallel. The elements 

 of the flowers are almost always in cycles of 4 or 5, rarely of 3 or 6. The embryo, 

 which is often sufficiently developed to completely exclude the albumen, has 

 always two opposite seed-leaves or cotyledons, except in some parasitic plants, 

 where even these members have been reduced out of existence. This class is 

 here arranged as follows : — 



Sub-Class 1. — Cfwripetaks. Calyx and cprolla normally present. Petals 

 free from one another, except in few aberrant forms. 



Series 1. — Thalamifloree. Petals and stamens inserted into the torus 



below the pistil. 

 Series 2. — DisciflorcB. Petals and stamens inserted on or about a 

 fleshy disk formed on the torus. 



