20 FAMILIAR LESSONS IN BOTANY. 



the leaf. These are caMed fronds. Ferns are called fronds. 

 The leafless part of a fern, the stem of a mushroom, the 

 little thread that supports some winged 

 and downy seeds, are called stipes. Here 

 is a dandelion seed (Fig. 13) ; a is the seed, 

 b the stipe, and c the down. You are fa- 

 miliar with the mushroom. It looks like 

 a tin}' umbrella, the stem or handle being 

 the stipe. 



Fig. 13. 40. Now I have told you that the first 



grand division of stems is into Exogenous, Endogenous, 

 and Acrogenous, and that exogenous etems are divided into 

 herbaceous and woody ; these are either simple or compound : 

 if compound, the divisions are called branches, and if again 

 subdivided, they are called boughs. 



41. Herbaceous plants are soft and watery. Annuals 

 are herbaceous; perennial plants are woody, though all 

 woody plants are not perennial, yet they are longer lived 

 generally than the soft-stem plants. Geologists tell us that 

 acrogens, plants Avitli stipe stems and fronds, were first 

 formed. They call the carboniferous era, the period when 

 coal-plants grew, the age of acrogens. Carboniferous means 

 bearing or producing coal. "What a singular appearance 

 our globe must have presented when nothing but feathery 

 fronds, from the tiny leaf soft as down to the gigantic tree- 

 fern, waved their feathery foliage in the primeval air, we 

 can form some faint idea when looking upon the wild 

 wilderness of ferns growing in rank luxuriance as they do 

 in the alluvial ^* bottoms" of the rivers and bayous of the 

 South and West. We learn also from geology, that after 

 the acrogenous came the cauline or branching variety of 



40. Repeat what yon have learned respecting the divisions of stems. 



41. Are annuals herbaceous? Are o/^ woody plants perennial? What class of 

 plants do geoloi,Msts tell us was first formed ? What do they call this period ? 

 Meaninj: of carbonift-TOus ? 



Note. - The teaclii/r will explain this a little further. 



