eady quoted, Solomon is said to have discoursed of plants, "from the
cedar tree that is in Lebanon, to the hyssop that springeth out of the
wall,"--from the great tree to the minute herb; and Cowley rose, in his
metrical treatise, as has been shown, from descriptions of herbs and
flowers to descriptions of fruit and forest trees. And as in every age
in which there existed a terrestrial vegetation there seem to have been
"trees" as certainly as "herbs," the palaeontological botantist finds that
he has, in consequence, to range his classes, not in one series, but in
two,--the Gymnogens, or cone-bearing trees, in a line nearly parallel
with the Acrogens, or flowerless, spore-bearing herbs. But the
arrangement is in no degree the less striking from the circumstance that
it is ranged, not in one, but in two lines. It is, however, an untoward
arrangement for the purposes of the Lamarckian, whose peculiar
hypothesis would imperatively demand, not a double, but a single column,
in which the ferns and club mosses would stand far in advance, in point
of time, of the Coniferae. In the Coal Measures, so remarkable for the
great luxuriance of their flora, both the Gymnogens and Acrogens are
largely developed, with a very puzzling intermediate class, that, while
they attained to the size of trees, like the former, retained in a
remarkable degree, as in the Lepidodendra and the Calamites, the
peculiar features of the latter. And with these there appear, though
more sparingly, the Endogens,--monocotyledonous plants, represented by a
few palm-like trees (Palmacites), a few date-like fruits
(Trigonocarpum), and a few grass-like herbs (Poacites). In the great
Secondary division, the true dicotyledonous plants first appear; but, so
far as is yet known, no dicotyledonous wood. In the earlier formations
of the division a degree of doubt attaches to even the few leaves of
this class hitherto detected; but in the Lower Cretaceous strata they
become at once unequivocal in their character, and comparatively
abundant, both as individuals and species; and in the Tertiary deposits
they greatly outnumber all the humbler classes, and appear not only as
herbs, but also as great trees. Not, however, until shortly before the
introduction of man do some of their highest orders, such as the
Rosaceae, come upon the scene, as plants of that great garden--including
the fields of the agriculturist--which it has been part of man's set
task upon earth to keep and