248 Field, Forest, and Wayside Flowers 
ovules and pollen, are called ‘‘ phanerogams,”’ the 
term being derived from two Greek words which 
mean a visible or apparent marriage. 
It was long suspected that among flowerless 
plants also the new individual was born as the re- 
sult of the union of two parent-cells, but with the 
imperfect microscopes of former times this union 
could not be seen in detail, and the facts concern- 
ing it could never be accurately learned. 
So all the series of the flowerless plants, among 
which are numbered lichens, seaweeds, mosses, 
liverworts, horsetails, and ferns, were named ‘‘ cryp- 
togams,” from two Greek terms, which mean a 
hidden marriage. 
But little is hidden by mere minyteness from 
the modern compound-microscope, and though 
some of the smallest cryptogams—the microbes 
and bacteria—have ‘‘ ways that are dark” still, the 
life-history of the mosses, liverworts, horsetails, 
and ferns is now accurately known. 
The differences between these two great series 
of plants—the flowering and the flowerless—are 
sharply defined at the very beginning of their 
histories. In the ripe seed the little plant is al- 
ready formed. 
It lies snugly folded into the smallest possible 
