VASCULAR FLOWEELESS PLANTS. 93 



organs named apothecia in the lictens, urns or capsules in the 

 mosses, and thecse in the ferns. 



138. The recent discovery, within the last few years, of 

 antheridia or organized bodies, analogous to the stamens or 

 male sexual organs in the flowering-plants, in the different 

 tribes of the Cryptogamia, proves that these organized 

 receptacles of the spores are produced by a similar process of 

 fecundation, and hence they have been very properly termed 

 pistillidia. Like the pistils or female organs of flowering- 

 plants, they contain within their cavities fecundated germs or 

 spores, which have equally the power as well as the highly 

 elaborated seed of developing themselves into new cells, con- 

 formably to the arrangement of the cells of the plants in 

 which they originated, and thus of continuing the same vege- 

 table form in the earth. 



139. This discovery of the analogues of sexual organs in the 

 cryptogamia {xS'>"ti'os concealed, and ya/toj union or mar- 

 riage) renders the term, as formerly understood, inapplicable 

 to the present state of science. There is now no longer 

 any doubt as to the existence of these organs. The only 

 difference between the antheridia and pistillidia of Crypto- 

 gamous plants or flowerless plants, and the stamens and 

 pistils of the Phanerogamous {favi^os conspicuous, and ya^nof 

 union or marriage), or flowering-plants, is in the degree of 

 their development, the stamens and pistils of flowers being 

 antheridia and pistillidia in a more highly developed condi- 

 tion, and the same remark applies to the seeds or embryos 

 which are contained in the cavity of the germen ; these are 



