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Fig. 295. 
THALLOGENS. 
The Thallogens of recent botanists correspond in all respects with 
the Cryptogamia of older botanists, a name given to this division of 
the vegetable world, not from their reproductive organs being 
Invisible, as has long been admitted, but from their being incon- 
Spicuous, and requiring close observation, and some exact know- 
ledge of their organisation, in order to discern them. If we enter 
on a somewhat minute investigation of this important group, we 
are led to do so by the consideration that their organisation, 
Structure, and development is not usually attempted in elementary 
anical works ; and we feel assured that the interest and novelty 
of the observations we shall have to offer will be our apology for 
the relative extent of our descriptions. 
The division includes vegetables destitute of stamens and of 
Pistils, whose embryo is simple, homogeneous, and without distinct 
Pde t A great number of them are of minute microscopic 
‘mensions their reproductive organs can only be distinguished 
= the help of a lens or a microscope. Nevertheless, these being 
te 80 humble, and to all appearance all but forgotten in 
of io a gg creations, fulfil an important part in the economy 
| €. They constituted the first origin, and were even the 
Source of al] ue 
 Neieaus = vegetation. Disaggregating rocks, they produced the 
a. 
tth which became the means of their own destruction. 
*nriched soil nourished plants of more complex organisation, 
