1566. I therefore place in this class the _Coniferæ_ or trees with
acicular foliage, because they have no ovarium, but naked seeds; and
besides these, some other plants, though doubtfully, on account of
their very abortive blossoms, as the Naiadaceæ. There are therefore
Tracheal plants without and with stamina. The first portray the stock
or trunk, the second, the thyrsus or blossom; they live mostly in dry
situations, and produce resins or fetid matters.
1567. First order. _Parenchymatous ferns--Aquatic ferns._ I here place
the aquatic ferns, because, as water-plants, they occupy a lower
situation, because they support the fruits upon a radical trunk, and
finally, because these fruit-vesicles have two kinds of contents, all
of which seems to remind us of the fuci and lichens; they correspond to
the Tremellini.
1568. Second order. _Sheath-ferns--Club-ferns._ Here commence the
land ferns, and those kinds indeed whose so-called capsules open in
a valvular manner, just as in the liverworts; or almost after the
fashion of a pyxidium by an orifice, somewhat as in the mosses; the
trunk is provided with squamose leaves or lobes, e. g. Lycopodiaceæ and
Osmundaceæ; they correspond to the Confervaceæ.
1569. Third order. _Stem-ferns--Annular or Ring-ferns._ Here we meet
with phylloidal involuted capsules or seeds upon the back of a stem
that is likewise leaf-like; e. g. the typical or true ferns.
1570. They have rudiments of roots and a stem, together with foliage,
because they are the prototypes of these three organs.
1571. The ring of their capsules corresponds to the midrib of the
leaf. In the preceding order the capsule was only an upsprung stalk;
but it is here an upsprung and unfolded leaf, the prototype of the
bud-development.
1572. The fern-capsules, namely, the true seeds, are an accumulation
of leaf-buds at the extremity of the fascicle of spiral vessels. The
indusium is the upraised epidermis, which opens in a spathose manner;
it consequently stands in the signification perhaps of the floral
spathe or involucrum. They correspond to the Fuci.
1573. Fourth order. _Floral ferns--Fluviales._ If the tracheal plants
be exalted unto the flower, male organs cannot fail in at once
beginning to develop. I place therefore in this order the Naiadaceæ
with very arrested blossoms, and simply stamina without calyx and
corolla. The spiral vessels are rather doubtful.
1574. Fifth order. _Fruit ferns--Coniferæ._ Tree with
imperfectly-formed spiral vessels, stamina without corollæ, seeds
without ovarium; thus agreeing with the Cryptogamia even to the
stamina; they form likewise sixteen families. (Vid. Tab. B.)
SEXUAL PLANTS.
1575. So soon as the three tissues separate completely from each other
into bark, liber, and wood, while the tracheæ are arranged circularly
into several clusters or groups, does the antagonism of these organs
also make its appearance, and exhibit itself as sex in the floral
organs.
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