Cryptogamous plants with a distinct axis (stem and branches), growing from the apex only, and furnished for the most part with distinct leaves (sometimes taking the form of an expanded leaf-like usually prostrate _thallus_); reproduction by means of antheridia and archegonia, sometimes also by gemmation. SUBCLASS I. VASCULAR ACROGENS, OR PTERIDOPHYTES. Stems (and foliage when present) containing both woody fibre and vessels; antheridia or archegonia, or both, borne on a minute prothallus, which is developed from the spore on germination. [*] Spores of only one kind; prothallus bearing antheridia and archegonia. 130. Equisetaceæ (p. 675). Cylindric jointed hollow-stemmed plants, with toothed sheaths. Fructification in a terminal spike. 131. Filices (p. 678). Ferns, with fronds circinate in vernation, bearing the fructification on the under surface or beneath the margin. 132. Ophioglossaceæ (p. 693). Fronds often fern-like, erect in vernation. Sporangia globose, coriaceous, 2-valved, in special spikes or panicles. 133. Lycopodiaceæ (p. 695). Low moss like plants with elongated stems and small persistent entire several-ranked leaves. Sporangia solitary, axillary, 1--3-celled, 2--3-valved. [*][*] Spores of two kinds, the _macrospore_ producing a prothallus with archegonia, the _microspore_ smaller and developing antheridia. 134. Selaginellaceæ (p. 697). Low leafy moss-like or marsh plants, with branching stems, and small 4--6-ranked leaves, or with a corm-like stem and basal linear-subulate leaves, the two kinds of spores in distinct solitary axillary 1-celled sporangia. 135. Marsiliaceæ (p. 700). The two kinds of spores in the same or different sporangia which are borne in a coriaceous peduncled sporocarp arising from a slender creeping rhizome. Fronds digitately 4-foliolate or filiform. 136. Salviniaceæ (p. 701). The two kinds of spores in separate thin-walled 1-celled sporocarps or conceptacles clustered beneath the small floating fronds; macrospores solitary. SUBCLASS II. CELLULAR ACROGENS, OR BRYOPHYTES. Plants with cellular tissue only; both antheridia and archegonia borne upon the plant itself.--Including the MUSCI, or Mosses (which are not treated of here), never thallose, and bearing capsules which usually dehisce by a lid and contain spores only, and the HEPATICÆ, which bear capsules which dehisce by valves or irregularly and usually have elaters mingled with the spores. The latter division comprises the following Orders. [*] Capsule 4-valved; plant a leafy axis or sometimes a branching thallus. 137. Jungermanniaceæ (p. 702). Leaves, when present, without a midrib, 2-ranked, with often a third row beneath; pedicels slender. [*][*] Capsule 2-valved, or dehiscing irregularly, or indehiscent; plant a thallus or thalloid stem. 138. Anthocerotaceæ (p. 726). Thallus without epidermis, irregularly branching; pedicels stout or none. Capsule with a columella. Elaters mostly without fibres.