ation of the chapters on structure, etc.
Additional plates, representing leading types of edible and poisonous
mushrooms, will also be inserted in each number.

In the compilation and extension of this work I have the assistance of
my daughter, Miss A. Robena Taylor, who has given considerable attention
to the study of fungi, and who has been my faithful coadjutor in the
work of collecting specimens, etc., for a number of years.

For valuable suggestions as to structural characteristics and methods of
classification I am especially indebted to Prof. Chas. H. Peck, of
Albany, New York, Dr. M. C. Cooke, of England, and Prof. P. A. Saccardo,
of Italy.

The colored plates in pamphlet No. 1, together with a few of those which
will appear in the succeeding numbers of this series, are reproductions
of those prepared, under my direct supervision, for the pamphlets
entitled "Food Products" published by the Department of Agriculture and
referred to above.

THOMAS TAYLOR, M. D.

May 7, 1897.

CRYPTOGAMS.

The cryptogamic or flowerless plants, _i. e._, those having neither
stamens nor pistils, and which are propagated by spores, are divided,
according to Dr. Hooper, into the following four classes:--Pteridophyta
or vascular acrogens, represented by the ferns, club-mosses, etc.;
Bryophyta or cellular acrogens, represented by the musci, scale-mosses,
etc.; Algae, represented by the "Red Seaweeds," Diatomacae, etc.; Fungi or
Amphigens, which include the molds, mildews, mushrooms, etc. The
lichens, according to the "Schwendener Hypotheses," consist of
ascigerous fungi parasitic on algae.

FUNGI.

Botanists unite in describing the plants of this class as being
destitute of chlorophyll and of starch. These plants assume an infinite
variety of forms, and are propagated by spores which are individually so
minute as to be scarcely perceptible to the naked eye. They are entirely
cellular, and belong to the class Amphigens, which for the most part
have no determinate axe, and develop in every direction, in
contradistinction to the Acrogens, which develop from the summit,
possessing an axe, leaves, vessels, etc.

Fungi are divided by systematists into two great classes:

1. Sporifera, in which the spores are free, naked, or soon exposed.

2. Sporidifera, in which the spores are not exposed, but instead are
enclosed in minute cells or sacs, called asci.

These classes are again