112 FIRST FORMS OF VEGETATION. 
linear filaments of extreme tenuity, and some- 
what curved, which vibrate slowly in every direc- 
tion. These curious bodies are supposed to be 
analogous to the spermatozoids produced in the 
antheridia of the alge and mosses, and which 
seem to perform an essential part in the repro- 
duction of all cryptogamic plants. By the dis- 
covery of these curious bodies in lichens and 
fungi, the law of the duality of the organs of 
reproduction, which was so long supposed to 
be the exclusive privilege of the flowering plants, 
is now found to be without an exception in the 
vegetable kingdom. There is no really agamous 
plant, no plant without sex. The name of cryp- 
togamia, given to the flowerless plants under 
the idea that their mode of reproduction was 
altogether anomalous, is now a misnomer. Assi- 
duous observation, and the perfection with which 
microscopes are now constructed, have enabled 
modern botanists to determine that in all plants, no 
matter to what group they belong, flowering or 
flowerless, there exist two distinct orders of re- 
productive organs, the relative value of which 
may be compared to that of the two sexes in 
animals. The segregation of certain parts from 
the general organism, in order to fulfil more 
effectually the purpose of multiplying the indi- 
viduals of a species, is traceable in the humblest 
