70 
The Ohio Naturalist. 
[Vol. XIII, No. 4, 
THE CLASSIFICATION OF PLANTS, VIII. 
John H. Schaffner. 
Below is presented a synopsis of the fifteen plant phyla given 
in the preceding paper of this series. The classification of the 
fungi follows with a key to the orders. 
The following changes should be made in the arrangement of 
the families of Anthophyta as presented in the sixth paper: 
Transfer the Parnassiaceae from Saxifragales to Ranales following 
the Ranunculaceae. Interchange the position of Loganiaceae 
and Oleaceae. Also interchange the position of Bromeliaceae 
and Dioscoreaceae. 
SYNOPSIS OF THE PLANT PHYLA. 
A. Plant body unicellular or filamentous, or if a solid aggregate through the 
ovary, when present, not an archegonium; never seed-producing; 
nonsexual, with a simple sexual life cycle, or with an alternation of 
generations. 
I. Cells typically with poorly differentiated nuclei and chromatophores, 
reproducing by fission; motile or nonmotile, colored or colorless, 
with or without chlorophyll but never with a pure chlorophyll- 
green color; resting spores commonly present. 
Phylum 1. Schizophyta. 
II. Cells with well differentiated nuclei, and if holophytic usually with 
definite chromatophores; with or without chlorophyll; colorless, 
green, or variously tinted by coloring matters. 
(I.) Nonsexual, unicellular plants without chlorophyll having a 
plasmodium stage of more or less completely fused amoeboid 
cells from which complex sporangium-like resting bodies are 
built up. Phylum 2. Myxophyta. 
(II.) Plants not developing a plasmodium, but the cells normally 
covered with walls in the vegetative phase. 
1. Unicellular or filamentous plants containing chlorophyll, 
either brown with silicious, two-valved walls or green 
with complex chromatophores, the walls not silicified; 
conjugating cells not ciliated, isogamous. 
Phylum 3. Zygophyta. 
2. Plants not with silicified, two-valved walls, if with a direct 
conjugation of nonmotile cells or branches then without 
chlorophyll. 
(1.) Plants with chlorophyll; if without chlorophyll then 
either without a true mycelium, or if a mycelium is 
present having a sexual phase with ciliated, motile 
sperms. 
a. Antheridium when present not consisting of a 
globular structure containing sperm-bearing 
filaments; often with an alternation of gen¬ 
erations. 
(a.) Plants green with chlorophyll or colorless, 
nearly all producing nonsexual zoospores, the 
sexual forms isogamous or heterogemous. 
Phylum 4. Gonidiophyta. 
