XV11 



INTRODUCTION 



For a long time it has been customary to subdivide 

 the vegetable kingdom into Cryptogams (Non-flowering 

 Plants) and Phanerogams (Flowering Plants). These 

 designations are, however, misleading in various respects, 

 creating the impression, at least among non-botanical 

 readers, that all the former possess only primitive modes 

 of reproduction, while in reality some of their groups are 

 as highly organised in this respect as some of the flowering 

 plants. Further, the various groups of cryptogams are 

 totally different from each other, having only one feature 

 in common, viz. the dispersal by means of spores, while 

 the phanerogams, although also producing spores or corre- 

 sponding organs at a certain stage of their life-cycle, 

 are dispersed by means of seeds. Some botanists have 

 consequently suggested the employment of the terms 

 sporophytes (spore-bearing plants) and sper-matophytes 

 (seed-bearing plants), but the discovery of fossil seed- 

 bearing ferns (Cycado-Filices) and various other reasons 

 render such a distinction equally impracticable or at any 

 rate not less inconvenient*. 



As this book is written chiefly for the general reader 

 and the beginner in botanical studies we have thought 

 it best, in order to facilitate their work, to adopt Endlicher's 

 grouping established in 1840 : 



* See D. H. Scott's article on "The present position of Palaeozoic Botany" in 

 Progressus Rei Botanicae, Vol. i, 1907, where this question is summed up as follows: "The 

 division of vascular plants into Spermophyta and Pteridophyta ceases to afford a 

 natural line of cleavage when we are concerned with palaeozoic vegetation"; and Kidston's 

 statement, quoted in the same article: "the Cycadofilices (pteridosperms) lona; antedated 

 the advent of true ferns." 



