16 



CLASSIFICATION OP PLANTS, 



green leaves. Sheaths of the leaves split on one side. Herbaceous plants, 

 and sometimes trees and shrubs, natives of every part of the world, and 

 familiar to all. 



56. Other orders belonging to Endogens are : .dtlismacese or Water-Plan- 

 tain-like plants, natives of marshes or standing water. SutomaceaB, the 

 Flowering Rush, the most ornamental of British water plants; PistiacesB, the 

 Duckweed ; Dioscor«ce<e, the Yam; Tamacees, the Black Bryony, a twining 

 plant occasionally found in hedges ; ^SmilacesB, the Smilaxes ; Bromelidcea;, 

 the Pine Apple ; Commelin«ce<«, Spider Wort ; Typhinaceae, Cat's Tail ; 

 ^roidaceae, the Arums ; Juncacese, the Rushes ; and CyiperdcecB, the Sedges, 

 which are distinguished from the proper grasses by having solid stems. 



ACROGENS. 



57. Acrogens, or vegetables which grow from their upper extremities, 

 contain the following principal Orders : i^ilices, Musci, Zichenes, ^'Igse, 

 and jPungi. 



58. Y,ilices. — Plants often consisting of a single leaf called a frond, mostly 

 without stems ; the leaves are rolled up before expansion, and with equal- 

 sized veins. Herbs, and sometimes trees, natives of every part of the world 

 in moist shady situations. Familiar examples are, the common Polypody 

 of tlie hedges, which is found also on pollards and large trees in moist situ- 

 ations, Maidenhair, the Brake, the Hart's Tongue, the Osmunda, the Ad- 

 der's Tongue, and the Moonwort. 



59. Musci. — Leafy cellular plants, with fruit in covered capsules. 



60. hichenes — Frondose plants with seeds in receptacles of various kinds, 

 of the same substance as the frond. 



61. A'lg<js. — Cellular water plants, chiefly found in the sea ; bearing fruit 

 in bladders either attached to, or imbedded in, the surface of the frond or 

 leaf-like plate. A common example of this order is the green hair-like 

 Conferva, found in ditches and stagnant waters. 



62. Fungi. — Succulent masses without leaves, veins, or fronds, and 

 bearing their sporules, or substitutes for seed, in tubular cells. Familiar 

 examples are, the common Mushroom and Toadstool. 



63. Other orders of Acrogens are JS'quisetaceae, or plants resembling the 

 common Equisetum or Horsetail, which to general observers is distinguished 

 by its terminal catkin from the Mare's-tail, in which the flowers are axillary. 

 Characeai or floating water-plants, consisting of a leaf and root ; and Lyco- 

 podiacese, which are moss-like plants, bearing a general resemblance to 

 the common club moss. All these orders may be recognised without refer- 

 ence to flowers or fruit, and they are chiefly of botanical interest. 



64. If the reader has profited from the preceding part of this section in 

 the manner in which we have wished him, he will have learned, when 

 endeavouring to describe a plant which he has seen to another person who 

 has not seen it, not to begin with the leaves and flowers and similar details, 

 but with the general appearance of the plant, and the resemblance which it 

 has to known plants, either single species, or orders, tribes, or genera. It is 

 in genera] of far more importance to be able to determine the order to which 

 a plant belongs, than its mere generic and specific name ; unless, indeed, the 

 knowledge of tliis serves as a key to books from which the natural order 

 may be learned, and consequently something of the properties of the plant 



