370 On the Genealogy of Plants. [June, 
of these forms, in the light of the broadest principles of classifi- 
cation, lead the technical botanist to a recognition of their genetic 
relationship, and thus bridge over the two great chasms in the 
vegetable series, it would not be the first time that vulgar obser- 
vation has been found to accord with true science after a long 
period of unmerited disdain. 
The fact that the leaves of the Cycadacee grow from a terminal 
bud like the palms, while they unfold from the circinate apex like 
the ferns, shows that this resemblance to both palms and ferns is 
not altogether fanciful or purely superficial; in fact their genetic 
development from the latter, as already shown, is established by 
other evidence of the most vital character based on the mor- 
phology of the reproductive organs. It is therefore probable that 
the Cycadaceeé are not only more nearly related both to the 
Palmacee and the Filices than is generally supposed, but that 
they are less nearly related to the Conifere than is implied by 
their position in the received system of classification. 
; he wood of the Cycadacee, as already stated, consists of a 
mass of sheathed fibres in a large central pith composed chiefly 
of large prosenchymatous cells, and if not identical with that of 
the palms and arborescent ferns, certainly. resembles this far more 
closely than it does that of the exogenous Gymnosperms. The sim- 
ilarity in thé mode of flowering without which such a position could 
never have been thought of, may perhaps have been accidental, 
the two widely divergent lines of vegetation passing through some 
of the same transition stages in their progress towards the ideal 
type of vegetal perfection. The evidence already adduced of the 
derivation of the Conifere from a distinct stock of Cryptogams, 
to which the Lepidodendron belonged, would seem to corroborate 
this view, and this quite independently of the real origin of the 
Dicotyle. Nor should botanists despair of still finding plain traces, — 
in the transformations of the floral organs, of the descent of the — 
Monoctyle from the Cycadacee, and with this view the embryo- 
logical study of the Pa/macee cannot be too strongly urged. i 
The proper origin of the Dicotyle, notwithstanding their 
possession of a closed ovary in common with the Monoctyla, is 4 
problem which presents the gravest difficulties to the genealog- 
ical systematist. Their derivation from the latter, though not 
< wholly without legitimate evidence, is far from established, and 
„may have to be altogether abandoned. The facts which support : 
: : __ this hypothesis may be thus briefly summed up: 
A. «Uy 
