AN INTEODUCTION 



CEYPTOGAMIC BOTANY. 



PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 



1. A glance at the vegetable world, accompanied by nothing 

 more than average powers of tact and observation, at once 

 recognises the fact, that the members of which it is composed 

 belong to several different divisions, more or less precisely 

 shadowed out, and presenting distinctions readily appre- 

 hended by the practised eye, though perhaps at the same time 

 incapable, if at all, of strict definition, without much study and 

 reflection. The palms, grasses, and lilies, for instance, will be 

 distinguished long before the peculiarities of their flowers, 

 much less the iiitimate structure of their seeds, are so much 

 as conjectured ; and various groups in the other grand co- 

 ordinate, as Umbellifers, Leguminosa, and Labiates, will, 

 with equal certainty, be separated from the general mass, 

 though meanwhUe individual groups of the two grand classes 

 of flowering plants will occasionally be confounded or mis- 

 placed, and far more members of subordinate divisions; and 

 this not so much from want of correct observation, for I am 

 not at present assuming any accurate examination of their 

 component parts, as from the prevalent habit of confounding 

 analogy with affinity. Thus, in popular language, species of 

 Lamium and Urtica will pass under the same generic name, 

 and NymphcBa will be supposed to have something to do 

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