CHAPTER Xm. 



BRANCH Til. PHANEROGAMIA (ANTHOPHYTA). 



THE FLOWERING PLANTS. 



443. In this great group we find the highest development 

 of the plant-body, its tissues, and organs of reproduction. 

 They are the most complex in structure, and most difficult 

 to fully understand, of all the plants in the vegetable king- 

 dom. 



444. The plant-body is composed of roots, stems, and 

 leaves, generally well developed. Frequently these mem- 

 bers of the plant-body are more or less branched, giving 

 rise to extensive branching root-systems, branching stems, 

 and branching leaves. Hairs (trichomes) of various forms 

 may occur upon all parts of the plant. 



445. By far the greater number of flowering plants are 

 chlorophyll-bearing, comparatively few only being para- 

 sitic or saprophytic. They range from minute plants one 

 or two centimetres in height, and living but a few days or 

 weeks, to enormous trees, which continue to grow for many 

 hundred years, and attain a height of a hundred metres or 

 more. 



446. The tissues are generally well developed in flower- 

 ing plants. The epidermis, which is copiously supplied with 

 breathing-pores, consists of one or (rarely) more layers of 

 cells, whose external walls are generally somewhat thick- 

 ened, and whose cell-contents rarely contain chlorophyll. 



