258 
ORGANOGRAPHY. 
BOOK I. 
CHAPTER III. 
OF THE COMPOUND ORGANS IN FLOWERLESS PLANTS, OR 
ACROGENS. 
We have now passed in review all the different organs which 
exist in the most perfectly formed plants ; that is to say, in 
those whose reproduction is provided for by the complicated 
apparatus of stamens and pistils, and, according to Schultz, 
which have latex, with its peculiar tissue. Let us next pro- 
ceed to consider those lower tribes, some of which are scarcely 
distinguishable from animals, where there is less evident trace 
of sexes, in which nothing constructed like the embryo is to be 
detected, whose fluids have a simple motion of rotation, and 
which seem to have no other provision made for the per- 
petuation of their races than a dissolution of their cellular 
system. In what I may have to say about them, I shall not, 
however, do any thing more than give a mere enumeration 
and description of their organs, and an explanation of the 
numerous peculiar terms employed by writers in speaking of 
them. All speculative considerations are in this case left out 
of view : those who wish to be informed upon such points may 
consult the Introduction to the Natural System of Botany. 
1. Ferns. 
Filices, or Ferns, are plants consisting of a number of 
leaves, or fronds as they used to be called, attached to a stem 
which is either subterraneous or lengthened above the ground, 
sometimes rising like a trunk to a considerable height. They 
are the largest of known vegetables in which no organs of 
fructification analogous to those of phaenogamous plants have 
been discovered. Their stems are often arborescent, acquir- 
ing as much as the height of fifty or sixty feet, or even more. 
