382 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
planet, it is equally as important to note wlietlier plants liave been 
progressive in their development, as to determine tliis point in rela- 
tion to the animal-kingdom. Rudimentary vegetables, lilce rudi- 
mentary animals, are simi)le cells ; and at a glance everyone would 
perceive the beautiful flowers in our gardens and greeneries to be far 
more highly organized than the toad-stool spi-outing aromad the 
mouldering fence, or the leathery lichen clinging to the crumbling 
wall. The same questions, too, will naturally be asked, " Were the 
simplest plants created first ?" and " What was the first vegetation 
that appeared on our earth ?" 
Here, then, we have need of a connected list of the vegetable 
world, both in its present and past conditions, if we would rightly 
comprehend even those facts which geologists have been able so far 
to lay before us. Such a list, however, as one would desire is im- 
practicable in the present state of knowledge, and we therefore content 
ourselves with presenting one having a sufficiently modified aspect 
as to serve a useful purpose in our considerations of fossil plants. 
All plants are either simple cells, like the yeast-plant, or cellular, 
that is, structui'ally composed of a simjjle aggregation of cells into a 
cellular tissue, such as the green scum-like Confervse of om' ponds, 
the incrusting lichens on our trees and walls, the Fungi, or mush- 
room- and mildew-tribes, and the Algae, most familiarly known by 
the common seaweeds of our shores. Or they are vascular, -i.e., 
composed of a tissue containing numerous vessels for the circulation 
of air, the conveyance of nutritive fluids and other purposes. These 
latter or vascular plants are again subdivided into Cryptogams, or 
those having no visible seed-organs, and Phanerogams, or those 
in which the flowers and seed-vessels are evident. 
To the Cryptogams belong the mosses, equiseta (mare's- tails), 
ferns, and lycopodia or club-mosses ; and under the three great 
divisions of the Phanerogams are ranged the flowering-plants and 
trees. These di\'isions are constituted for the sub-grouping of 
(1st) Those flowering-plants that have but one seed-lobe or cotijledon, 
such as lilies, rushes, grasses, and palms, and which, from their growth 
by increase from within are denominated Endogens. 2nd, For those 
with naked or unprotected seeds, such as the pine-apple and fir : these, 
in allusion to this peculiarity, are called Gymnospcrms. 3rd, For such 
