1. Gymnosperms, or naked seeded plants, include all cone-bearing plants, mostly evergreen and always trees or shrubs. The pine is a familiar example. 2. Angiosperms, or inclosed seeded plants, include all other flowering plants of whatever kind. Divided into: (_a_) Monocotyledons. Sprouting with one seed leaf, and leaves practically always parallel-veined. Parts of the flower in threes or multiples of three. Familiar examples are corn, grass, sugar-cane, palms, cannas, and lily of the valley (Figures 82-85). (_b_) Dicotyledons. Sprouting with two seed leaves, and the leaves practically always netted-veined. Parts of the flower in fours or fives or multiples of these numbers. Includes all the remaining flowering plants and is a larger group than the monocotyledons and the cone-bearing plants combined (Figures 78-81). No matter from what part of the world a totally unfamiliar plant may come, it is always possible to decide into which one of these groups it belongs. That in itself tells us a good deal about its ancestors and its future, “places” it, in fact, in one of those major groups into which all plants are divided. No other characters that plants possess are so important in determining their true position in the scale of plant life as those we have briefly outlined. But merely to sort plants into these large groups does not tell us all we need to know about them. For all plants not only belong to monocotyledons, or dicotyledons, or gymnosperms, but also to smaller divisions of these groups. Just as white men are divided into Englishmen, Frenchmen, etc., so there is the greatest necessity of dividing our large plant groups into smaller and more precise categories.