. A history of the vegetable kingdom; embracing the physiology of plants, with their uses to man and the lower animals, and their application in the arts, manufactures, and domestic economy. Illus. by several hundred figures. Botany; Botany, Economic; 1855. CRYPTOQAMIC FRUCTIFICATION. 77 seoptioism, inconsistent with impartial researcli, whicli discovered itself even in the celebrated Necker, urging him to exclaim rather too rashly, that whatever had been or might in future be said of the fructification of the mosses, he was determined to regard as a fiction or a dream. In this stage of progi-
. A history of the vegetable kingdom; embracing the physiology of plants, with their uses to man and the lower animals, and their application in the arts, manufactures, and domestic economy. Illus. by several hundred figures. Botany; Botany, Economic; 1855. CRYPTOQAMIC FRUCTIFICATION. 77 seoptioism, inconsistent with impartial researcli, whicli discovered itself even in the celebrated Necker, urging him to exclaim rather too rashly, that whatever had been or might in future be said of the fructification of the mosses, he was determined to regard as a fiction or a dream. In this stage of progi-ess, the celebrated Hedwig first began to direct his attention to the study of the mosses, when, perceiving all that had been previously done, with a view to elucidate their fructification, to present but a chaos of confu- sion and contradiction, he found it absolutely necessary to renounce aU sort of dependence upon previous opinion and authority, and to ex- amine every thing for himself. This he accord- ingly did with a degree of caution, and scmpu- losity, and patience never yet surpassed; so that, by applying glasses of a higher magnifying power than any preceding botanist, and taking no fact upon trust, he at length succeeded in obtaining a clear and complete view of the subject, in dis- encumbering it of tlie rubbish with which it had been so long clogged, and in presenting to the cryptogamist a superstructure not the offspring of his own fancy, but the image of nature. Ac- cording to Iledwig, the mosses are, for the most part, dicecimis, that is, they have the barren and fertile flowers on separate plants, as in the famOy hypnvm. Many of them are, however, moruBcious, or have the barren and fertUe flowers distinct, but placed on the same plant, as in the family phascum; a few of these are hermaphrodite, or have the two kinds of flowers united on the same plant, as in the Iryvm aureum. We shall now attempt a description of the two kinds of flowers. The barren flowers are
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