It was my intention to make some report on the cellular plants, —
the cryptogamous vegetables, — but there has not been time to accomplish
it.
It is not to be expected that the Report is entirely perfect, but care
and effort have been employed to make it as complete as possible.
With high respect and consideration,
I am your Excellency’s
Very obedient servant,
C. DEWEY.
February 24th, 1840.
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.
T he object of Botany is the arrangement and description of
Plants. Systematic Botany must depend upon such principles,
that it may have a universal application. That the language may
be useful, and attain its direct object, it must be descriptive of
the particular and minute, as well as the great, facts in the world
of vegetables. An artificial and a natural method have been
adopted for this purpose ; and both were begun by Linnæus, the
Father of Botany. The former was carried to great extent and
perfection by him ; the latter has been greatly improved, and,
under great modifications, carried to much perfection by later
botanists. In its details, much yet remains to be ascertained and
settled.
In the artificial system of Linnæus, the Classes, Orders, and
Genera were determined by the organs employed in the production
of the seed, or rather, by the several parts of the flower and
fruit. As these organs were visible or invisible, he divided plants
into the two great divisions of Phenogamous and Cryptogamous,
that is, having visible and invisible organs of reproduction. As this
system, with all its simplicity and beauty, and ease of application,
and extensive adoption, associated plants of very different structure,
the natural method has been adopted by the most distinguished
botanists of the present age. In the Natural System,
plants are associated according to their resemblance in structure
and organization. To the great Linnæan divisions just mentioned,
correspond the Vasculares and Cellulares, or, as they are also
called, from another great fact, the Flowering and the Flowerless
plants. Between the structure of these two divisions, there seems
to be a pretty marked distinction. To the cellular structure of
the Cellulares, only a mere allusion can be made.