140 



SCIENCE OF GARDENING. 



Part II. 



duous, and it often hapi>ens that one or otiicr of them still continues to accompany the pericarp or seed 

 both in its ripening and ripened state, constituting its appendage, and covering it either wholly or in part, 

 or adhering to it in one shape or other. 



Sect. IL Imperfect Plants. 



596. Plc.nts apparently defective in one or other of the more conspicuous parts or 

 organs, whether conservative or reproductive, are denominated imperfect. Lin- 

 njEus characterised them by the appellation of cryptogamous plants, because their 

 organs of fructification are not yet detected, or are so very minute as to require the aid of 

 the microscope to render them visible ; and in the system of Jussieu they are included 

 in the monocotyledoneae and acotyledonea2, composing the cryptogameae of the former, 

 and the whole of the latter division. As in the perfect plants, so in the imperfect plants, 

 the eye readily recognises traces of a similitude or dissimilitude of external habit and 

 deportment characterising the different individuals of which they consist, and suggesting 

 also the idea of distinct tribes or families. And upon this principle different botanists 

 have instituted different divisions, more or less extensive, according to their own peculiar 

 views of the subject. But one of the most generally adopted divisions of imperfect 

 plants is that by which they are distributed into the natural orders of filices, equisitaceaj, 

 lycopodineae, musci, hcpatica?, algae, lichenai, and fungi. Dillenius, Micheli, 

 Bulliard, Hedwig, and Acharius, have rendered themselves illustrious by the study of 

 tliese tribes. 



SuBSECT. 1. Filices, Equisilacecr, and Li/copodineee. 



597. The filices, equisitaceee, and li/copodinecc, are for the 7nost part herbaceous, and 

 die down to the ground in the winter, but they are furnished with a perennial root, from 

 which there annually issues a frond bearing the fructification. The favorite habitations of 

 many of them are heaths and uncultivated grounds, where they are found intermixed with 

 furze and brambles ; but the habitations of such as are the most luxuriant in their growth, 

 are moist and fertile spots, in sliady and retired situations, as on mossy dripping rocks, or 

 by fountains and rills of water. Some of them will thrive even on the dry and barren 

 rock, or in the chinks and fissures of walls; and others only in wet and marshy situations 

 where they are half immersed in water. 



SuBSECT. 2. Musci. 



598. The mosses are a tribe of imperfect plants of a small and diminutive size, consisting 

 often merely of a root, surmounted with a tuft of minute leaves, from the centre of which 

 the fructification springs, but furnislied for tlie most part with a stem and branches, on 

 which the leaves are closely imbricated, and the fructification terminal or lateral. They are 

 perennials and herbaceous, approaching to shrubby ; or annuals, though rarely so, and 

 wholly herbaceous, the perennials being also evergreens. Their most favorite habit- 

 ations are bleak and barren soils, such as mountains, heaths, woods, where they are 

 found, not only rooted in the earth, but attached also to the roots and trunks of trees, 

 and even to the flinty rock ; or immersed in bogs and ditches, or floating, though fixed by 

 tlie roots, in streams of running water. As they affect the most barren soils, so they 

 thrive best also in the coldest and wettest seasons. In the drought of summer they 

 wither and languish ; but in the more moderate temperature of autiurm they begin to 

 recruit, so tliat even the chilling cold of winter that deprives other plants of their verdure 

 and foliage, and threatens destruction to the greater part of vegetables, tends but to refresh 

 and revive thie family of the mosses, [fig. 44.) Hence their capacity of retaining moisture 

 for a great length of time vvithout discovering any tendency to putrefaction, and of recover- 

 ing their verdure when moistened with water, even after having been completely dried, and 

 kept in a dried state for many years. From the extreme minuteness of their parts, they 

 are apt to be overlooked by the superficial observer, or disregarded by the novice in 



