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plants, in order to ascertain their antecedents. These two sub- 

 kingdoms have been popularly regarded as so essentially separated 

 and distinct, that an apology for so doing might be by some con- 

 sidered necessary. But with the advance of the science, and the greater 

 knowledge possessed of the inferior section, so many close affinities 

 have been traced, and so many ties of relationship made evident, 

 that a reference to new points of likeness cannot well be regarded 

 as intrinsically erroneous, or out of the line of progress. The object 

 of the present paper being chiefly to endeavour to clear up some of the 

 relationships of the inflorescences among phanerogamous plants, and 

 settle their subordination, those of the Cryptogamia are but incidentally 

 alluded to, and only in so far as they may contribute to make these 

 relationships more evident, and tend to illustrate their natural sequence. 



On referring, then, to the manner in which the reproductive 

 organs are borne in the Fucacese, we find that here they are gathered 

 together into cavities or conceptacles, which are collected into heads 

 or ieceptacles at the extremity of fronds. The conceptacle communi- 

 cates with the external medium by an opening or pore. The central 

 portion or axis of the receptacle is frequently formed of mucus and 

 long-jointed cells ; but occasionally, however, as in Pycnophycus tu- 

 berculatus, the interior is more solid, and is occupied by a denser 

 cellular tissue, which may be taken as representing the pith of 

 higher plants. Some of the Fucacese are dioecious, others diclinous, 

 and a like arrangement occurs not unfrequently among the lower Pha- 

 nerogamia. 



On examining one of these conceptacles, it is seen that the re- 

 productive organs within it arise from the walls or parietes, and 

 that it contains besides a number of filaments or paraphyses, which 

 in the female conceptacles surround the spores. The filaments are 

 not always sterile. Occasionally they form antheridia, and these may 

 be in separate conceptacles, or in the same. Whilst the antheridia, 

 therefore, are analogous to the stamens, the filaments may be re- 

 garded as analogous to the staminodes, or the filaments of stamens, 

 when barren, and consequently to the floral envelopes, however 

 great the apparent difference, because the stamens are admittedly 

 capable of being transmuted into such appendages. In certain Pha- 

 nerogamous plants, indeed, the limb of the floral organs is so much 

 depauperated as to make the difference seem much less ; thus occasion- 

 ally the calyx is represented merely by a circle of hairs, which bear a 

 close morphological resemblance to the filaments alluded to. The floral 

 envelopes of Phanerogamia may therefore be regarded as represented 

 in an extremely rudimentary state^ in the conceptacles of Fucacese. 



* As the floral envelopes may pass into bracts, and even into leaves, it may possibly 

 happen that hereafter botanists, in pushing forward the theory of development, will come 

 to regard the cryptomatic frond, bearing within it means of reproduction and rudi- 

 mentary floral envelopes and leaves, as represented by the cotyledonous growth of higher 

 plants, which enclose the possible plant, with its higher organs, floral envelopes, and 



