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ELEMENTARY BOTANY. 



Spore-bearing plants (Cryptogavis). The first group includes 

 most of our common plants ; they bear flowers, whose func- 

 tion is the production of seeds. Each seed when mature con- 

 tains an embryo, or rudimentary plantlet. This small or- 

 ganism begins its development as a new individual when the 

 seed germinates. The second group of plants includes the 

 Ferns, Mosses, Lichens, Mushrooms, Mildews, Smuts, Bacteria, 

 Yeast plant, etc. These are generally spoken of as the " lower 

 plants." They do not produce flowers, and their reproductive 

 bodies are spores instead of seeds. Spores are simpler in struc- 

 ture than seeds ; they do not contain an embryo, but merely 

 protoplasm including the food material, which, when germi- 

 nation takes place, gives rise to the new individual. The divi- 

 sions and subdivisions of these main groups are shown in the 

 following outline : 



Phenoqams, or f . 

 Seed-bearing ] Angiosperms . 



plants. I, Gymnosperms 



' Pteridophytes. 



Cryptogams, or 

 Spore-bearing 

 plants. 



Bryophytes 



_ Thallophytes . 



Dicotyls . 

 Monocotyls 



Lycopodiacete 



Equisetaceae 



Filices . 



Musci . . . 



Hepaticfe 



Lichens 



Fungi . 



Algse 



Schizopliytes 



Myxomycetes 



Oak, Pea, etc. 

 Lily, Grasses, etc. 

 Pines, Cedars, etc. 

 Club Mosses. 

 Horsetails. 

 Ferns. 

 Mosses. 

 Liverworts. 

 Lichens. 



Mushrooms, Moulds, etc. 

 Pond-scum, " Sea-moss." 

 Bacteria, Yeast. 

 . Slime-moulds. 



7. The Myxomycetes, or Slime-moulds, are peculiar and 

 interesting plants.' During their growing or vegetative stage, 

 they consist of a homogeneous mass of colored (but never 

 green) protoplasm, which has received the name of Plasmo- 

 dium. There is no cell-wall; there is a streaming or circula- 

 tion in the mass of protoplasm, and the latter can, by constant 

 change of form, move slowly around on the damp decaying 

 wood, or vegetable mould, where these plants are often to be 

 met with. In their vegetative state they are so much like the 



' This group is regarded by many — perliaps by a majority of botanists — as 

 boloTiging to the animal kingdom. 



