Class I. DICOTYLEDONOUS or EXOGENOUS PLANTS.
Stems formed of bark, wood, and pith; the wood forming a zone between the other two, and increasing, when the stem continues from year to year, by the annual addition of a new layer to the outside, next the bark. Leaves netted-veined. Embryo with a pair of opposite cotyledons, or in Subclass II. often three or more in a whorl. Parts of the flower mostly in fours or fives.
Subclass I. ANGIOSPERMÆ. Pistil consisting of a closed ovary which contains the ovules and becomes the fruit. Cotyledons only two.
Division I. POLYPETALOUS: the calyx and corolla both present; the latter of separate petals. (Apetalous flowers occur in various Orders, as noted under the subdivisions.)
A. THALAMIFLORÆ. Stamens and petals hypogynous (free both from the calyx and from the superior ovary), upon a usually narrow receptacle (not glandular nor discoid, except in Reseda, sometimes stipe-like). (Stamens and petals upon the partly inferior ovary in some Nymphæaceæ.) Apetalous flowers occur in the Ranunculaceæ and Caryophyllaceæ.
[*] 1. Carpels solitary or distinct (or coherent in Magnoliaceæ); sepals and petals deciduous (except in Nymphæaceæ); leaves alternate or radical, without stipules (sometimes opposite or whorled and rarely stipular in Ranunculaceæ); embryo (except in Nelumbo) small, in fleshy albumen.
1. [Ranunculaceæ] ([p. 34]). Sepals (3 or more), petals (as many, in regular flowers, or none), stamens (usually many), and carpels (1–many) all distinct. Fruit achenes, follicles, or berries. Mostly herbs.
2. [Magnoliaceæ] ([p. 49]). Sepals and petals colored alike, in three or more rows of three, imbricate. Fruit cone-like, formed of the numerous cohering pistils. Trees.
3. [Anonaceæ] ([p. 50]). Sepals (3) and petals (6, in two rows) valvate. Fruit pulpy. Shrubs or small trees.
4. [Menispermaceæ] ([p. 51]). Sepals and petals in twos or threes, imbricate. Pistils becoming 1-seeded drupes. Diœcious woody climbers, with palmate or peltate leaves.