Cryptogamia.

Cryptogamia. This term was introduced by Linnæus as the twenty-fourth and last class of his system of classification, and broadly with its present contents. The name, however (Gr. kryptos, 'concealed,' and gamos, 'marriage'), in opposition to flowering plants (Phanerogamia, q.v.), records its donor's well-founded expectation that sexual reproduction would one day be discovered. Jussieu proposed to distinguish them as Acotyledones from monocotyledons and dicotyledons; but the term has necessarily lapsed for many reasons. De Candolle distinguished them into two great groups, Cellulares and Vasculares; while Endlicher's separation of the vegetable kingdom into Thallophytes and Cormophytes still further recognised their vast morphological range. Armed with the microscope more recent investigators have determined the life-history and mode of reproduction of all the leading types, so not only amply confirming the hypothesis of Linnæus, or even still further increasing their morphological importance as compared with Phanerogamia, but entirely revolutionising our interpretation of the flowering plants themselves, since leading us to view them as more profoundly cryptogamic than the cryptogams. The separate groups of cryptogamic plants are outlined in the articles ALGÆ, SEAWEEDES, BACTERIA, FUNGI, LICHENS, MOSSES, FERNS, RHIZOCARPS, HORSE-TAILS, LYCOPodium, SELAGINELLA; while their relation to higher plants is explained under PHANEROGAMIA, FLOWER, GYMNOSPERMS.