4 INTRODUCTION TO CEYPTOGAMIC BOTANY. 



as in the former instance, to make certain mistakes; lie will 

 ascribe, on a superficial view, those peculiar dwarf and tufted 

 forms of flowering plants which occur at high altitudes in so 

 many genera, classes, and orders, to the mosses under which 

 name they are popularly known ; he will not be able to dis- 

 tinguish or separate the Cycads from similar but not closely 

 related forms, and even in a more instructed period, he will 

 marvel at the resemblance offered by the fronds Stangeria 

 paradoxa* (Fig. 1), to certain ferns ; he will confound, per- 

 haps, some of the larger club-mosses with Conifers ; he will be 

 liable, on an inspection of the leaves only, to suppose that such 

 plants as the Brazilian Cupania fiUcifolia (Fig. 2) are ferns, 

 so close is the resemblance which its chaffy hairs give to 





Fig. 2. 

 Part of a leaf of Cupania fiUcifolia, from the Kew Gardens. 



the bipinnate leaves ; and if his curiosity lead him so far 

 as to note the vegetation which clothes the rocks in tropical 

 rapids, he will be likely to fancy the whole group of Podos- 



* In ordinary Cycada, as Encephalartos horridus and Encephalartos 

 pungens, the veins all spring from the base and are nearly parallel, 

 following the configuration of the leaflet. 



