14 INTRODUCTION TO CRYPTOGAMIC BOTANY. 



ceptions ; the term Homorgana is synonymous witli Gellu- 

 lares; the term Nemece* applied by Fries, alludes to the fact 

 that the spores germinate by means of a protruded thread 

 without any indications of Cotyledons, but there are many of 

 the lower Algse in which the spores can scarcely be said to 

 germinate at all, and certainly protrude no thread, and the 

 spores of the higher Cryptogams are altogether anomalous, 

 so that the term is not more strictly definite than others; 

 8porophm-CB and Sporidecu indicate the nature of their organs 

 of reproduction, which, as being destitute of an embryo (a cir- 

 cumstance not without exception) are no true seeds ; Ananthas 

 is the same with Flowerless, a term often applied to Crypto- 

 gams, and only applicable when the word flower is made to 

 include stamens and pistUs as well as floral envelopes, for these 

 latter exist certainly in mosses and liverworts ; the word Acro- 

 gens indicates the apical mode of growth, which is not however 

 an universal character ; and finally, that of Favi, except it be 



* Fries, in Ms Systema Orbis Vegetabilis, states that four general 

 names, may be given according as the different phases of vegetable life 

 are taken into consideration. Thus, according to germination, they 

 are Nemea, germinating, that is, by a thread, and not by a radicle com- 

 posed of a cellular system with one or more cotyledons ; according to 

 vegetation they are Celltdaria, as in the greater number of species there 

 is no vascular tissue ; according to the mode of flowering they are 

 Ci-yptogama ; and according to their fruit, Sporidea, destitute of an 

 embryo. Fries then gives his reasons for preferring the word Nemea 

 to Acotyledonea : 1. Negative determinations are always of an inferior 

 rank, and must give way to positive when accurately determined. 2. 

 The necessity of the word for the formation of the terms Homonemece 

 and Heteroiwmeoe, descriptive of the two great divisions of cryptogamic 

 plants. 3. Analogy ; as, for instance, Evascularia is not to be preferred 

 to Cellvlaria. 4. Because of its greater precision, for true AcotyUdonous 

 plants exist amongst Pheenogams, as Cuscuta. The progress of science, 

 however, will always indicate exceptions to any term which may be 

 invented. New terms, however excellent, always produce a certain 

 degree of opposition at first, and are at length unwillingly received. 

 If the present work were published under the title of an Introduction 

 to Nemeous Botany, half the world would not known what was meant, 

 and the other half would set the writer down as a pedant of the first 

 water, inter omnes res maxima vitandus. 



