346 



, ZHSSONS WITS PLANTS 



of ferns are borne upon the leaves, and that they 

 are not preceded by flowers. The ferns are mem- 

 bers of that numerous • class known 

 , as flowerless plants or cryptogams. 

 We have thus far studied the flow- 

 ering plants or phanerogams. 



428. Although the spore performs 

 the office of "seed" in propagating 

 the plant, it is structurally very un- 

 like a seed. It is not the product of 

 a sexual process, and it contains no 

 Embryo. It is a comparatively simple 

 cellular body (very often only a single 

 cell), and is commonly much more mi- 

 nute than any seed. Its formation 

 and germination, therefore, are not 

 comparable with those processes in 

 the seed, and since the beginner can- 

 not see the phenomena for himself, 

 it is useless to describe them here. 



Fig 364. 



A true moss, nat- 

 ural size. 



428o. The ferns and their allies comprise the class known as 

 pteridophytes or vascular cryptogams, which are green and leaf- 

 bearing flowerless plants having woody bundles or fiber, and vessels, 

 in their stems. Aside from the ferns, the class includes the equi- 

 setums or scouring-rushes (Pig. 361), club-mosses (but not the true 

 mosses) and selaginellas. There are nearly three thousand kinds 

 of ferns known. Those who desire to pursue the subject should 

 begin with Underwood's little book, "Our Native Ferns and their 

 Allies," or Dodge's "Ferns and Fern Allies of New England." Per- 

 sons who desire to study the subject in detail should also have 



