184 



HISTORY OF THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 



families of plants, wliicli lie had previously 

 formed. 



Each of these classes contains a greater or less 

 number of natural families, all connected by the 

 common character which constitutes the class. 

 The number of these families is not definitively 

 settled, and indeed cannot be so, as new discov- 

 eries, and more accurate observations, by making 

 known new objects, or demonstrating the differ- 

 ences which exist between plants previously as- 

 sociated and confounded, continually augment 

 the number of families. When M. de Jussieu 

 published his Genera Plantarum, in 1789, he 

 described 100 families. We have now upwards 

 of 160, and the number is still capable of being 

 increased. 



We have thus exhibited a view of the three 

 great systems of botanical arrangement, and 

 in such detail as will enable the student of bo- 

 tany to perceive the relative merits of each. 

 Undoubtedly the Linnsean system is best suited 

 for a catalogue or dictionary, by which the spe- 

 cies and families of plants may be recognised and 

 classified; and for this purpose the system of 

 Linnaeus must be familiar to the botanist, and 

 wUl ever hold its ground as an admirable con- 

 trivance to facilitate his progress. In the follow- 

 ing pages, however, which are intended to con- 

 vey to the general reader a popular view of the 

 vegetable kingdom, more especially the practical 

 and economical history of plants, the natural 

 method or system of Jussieu will be adhered to, 

 in so far as he has portioned out the vegetable 

 Ivingdom into three gi'eat divisions, commencing 

 with plants of the simplest stmcture, especially 

 as regards their fructification, and ascending to 

 those of a more complicated nature. But al- 

 though we adopt this arrangement so far, we 

 shall deviate in some measure in the subdivisions, 

 and not follow exactly the order of the families 

 instituted by Jussieu ; on the contrary, we shall 

 rather an-ange the plants of each division as they 

 furnish food, clothing, or other conveniences, to 

 man, keeping as close, however, to the arrange- 

 ment of natural families of plants as is consistent 

 with our plan. 



CHAP. XXIV. 



rrnsT division or plants, includtkg the alg^e, 



FUNGI, LICHENS, MOSSES, AND TERNS. 



The First Division of the vegetable kingdom, 

 including the acotyledones, or those plants desti- 

 tute of a seed lobe, corresponds to the class cryp- 

 toffamia of Linnteiis. It contains all those plants 

 which are destitute of true organs of generation , 

 and which are reproduced by means of small 

 sporules, in their structure and development 



more resembling the bulbs of some of the true 

 floweringplants than that of ordinary seeds. Lin- 

 naeus called those plants cryptogamia, because he 

 imagined their fecundation to be eflFected by 

 means of organs which were concealed or little 

 known. De Candolle, remarking that only one 

 vegetable structure entered into their composi- 

 tion, names them cellular plants, in opposition 

 to the term vascular, which he gives to flowering 

 plants. 



The plants of this division nave a simpler stmc- 

 ture than that of the phanerogamous or flowering 

 plants. Many of them have not the distinction 

 of root, stem, branches, and leaves, but consist 

 simply of one mass of a uniform shape and tex- 

 ture throughout. The division contains the 

 families of algce, or sea weeds, fungi, or mush- 

 rooms, lichens, mosses, anA ferns. 



Algje. Little interest, comparatively, has been 

 taken in the algae, because they have been found 

 less conducive, either as articles of use or beauty, 

 to the convenience of man. They are not, how- 

 ever, without their admirers ; nor is the investi- 

 gation of their form and structure devoid of that 

 interest which all the works of nature are cal- 

 culated to excite. We find, says Dr GreviUe, the 

 vegetation of the ocean no less conspicuous foi 

 beauty and variety of fomi than splendour of 

 colour, admirably fitted for the place it is de- 

 signed to occupy, and of direct utility to man- 

 kind. Viewing these tribes in the most careless 

 way, as a system of subaqueous vegetation, or 

 even in a merely picturesque light, we see the 

 depths of ocean shadowed with submarine groves, 

 often of vast extent, intermixed with meadows 

 as it were of the most lively hues, while the 

 tmnks of the larger species, like the giant trees 

 of the tropics, are loaded with innumerable mi- 

 nute kinds as fine as silk, and delicate as the 

 most transparent membrane. Nor must we for- 

 get that while thousands and tens of thousands 

 of quadrupeds, birds, and insects, depend upon 

 the vegetation immediately surrounding us for 

 their very existence, a countless host of creatures 

 derive protection and nourishment from the 

 plants of the deep, appropriated to their use by 

 that merciful Power in whom they live, move, 

 and have their being, whose goodness is over aU 

 his works. Some of the algte, placed, on account 

 of the simplicity of their structure, at the bot- 

 tom of the scale, are so small as to be invisible 

 to the naked eye, except by the appearance they 

 give to other species on which they happen to 

 be parasitic in prodigious numbers. From these 

 microscopic forms, algee are found of all sizes on 

 our shores, up to thirty or forty feet in length, 

 an extent to wliich a common sea weed, like a 

 rope or cord (chorda filmn) not unfrequently 

 attains. Tliis plant resembles an enoiTQOus piece 

 of catgut, and is in fact known by the name of 

 sea catgut in Orkney, while in Shetland it goes 



