94 COMPOUND ORGANS OF PLANTS. 



probably only spores which have arrived at a higher degree of 

 development. 



140. We have seen how beautifully nature has simplified 

 the laws of vegetation and reproduction, in the lower tribes of 

 the Cryptogamia or flowerless plants ; these plants afford us 

 the best facilities for investigating questions of anatomical 

 structure, and showing us what is really essential to vegeta- 

 tion and reproduction. At some future time, we may call 

 attention to the manner in which the same laws are expressed 

 in the higher series of the Pheenogamous or flowering-plants, 

 as the beauty and simplicity of these laws will be more readily 

 appreciated and understood, and can only be fully revealed by 

 the study of the manifold varieties of form assumed by the 

 vegetative and nutritive organs of plants, in the completed 

 type of vegetation. 



