Cryptogam

“ If considered etymologically, it is merely a record of a past mistake, but it would be absurd to discard such a well-known name on the grounds that the genus is a Vascular Cryptogam and far removed from reeds. On the other hand, there often arise cases which present a real difficulty. The following example conveniently illustrates two distinct points of view as regards generic nomenclature. In 1875 Saporta described and figured a fragment of a fossil plant from the Jurassic beds of France as Cycadorachis armata [162] ”

“ This distinction between the Vascular Cryptogam Calamites and the supposed Gymnosperm Calamodendron is based on the presence of secondary wood in the latter type of stem. The prominence formerly assigned to the power of secondary thickening possessed by a plant as a taxonomic feature, is now known to have been the result of imperfect knowledge. The occurrence of a cambium layer and the ability of a plant to increase in girth by the activity of a definite meristem, is a feature which some recent Vascular Cryptogams [596] share with the higher plants ”

“ The common moulds often grow on lupins without rendering them poisonous, but it does not follow that some less familiar cryptogam is equally harmless under all circumstances. The soda extract of the poisonous lupins was deadly though it contained no cryptogams, but it is not shown that it was free from soluble chemical products (toxins) of the cryptogams. The same remark applies with equal force to the bacteria which have been invoked as the cause of the poisons. ”

“ Just as in flowering plants and in all the larger animals, however, the reproduction of young in cryptogams is a sexual process depending on the union of male and female. While in phanerogams that process may well be spoken of as visible marriage, with all the pageantry of insects and beautifully colored flowers, in cryptogams the process is not only a hidden marriage, its ways are sometimes so secret that, even in the common mushroom, the actual mating is conjectured rather than demonstrated. ”

“ The tongue is very dry while the affection is at its height. Close examination of the parts and microscopic inspection of papillæ removed for the purpose are said to show that the spores of the cryptogam are first developed at the base of the papillæ, separating them from each other. The irritation produced by the parasite causes longitudinal hypertrophy of the papilla, and the continued growth of the parasite produces a muff-like envelopment of the papilla ”

“ It remained uncertain, however, from which line of Cryptogams the gymnospermous Seed-plants had sprung. The great point of morphological comparison was the presence of two kinds of spore, and this was known to occur in the recent Lycopods and Water-ferns (Rhizocarpeae) and was also found in fossil representatives of the third phylum, that of the Horsetails. As a matter of fact all the three great Cryptogamic classes have found champions to maintain their claim to the ancestry of the Seed-plants, and in every case fossil evidence was called in. ”

“ Braun alludes to the fact of the persistence of the stigma (upon which, as wo have mentioned, Radlkofer relies) showing the absence of impregnation. In Cryptogams a remarkable instance of apparent parthenogenesis occurs in Chara crinita. In all the Characeæ, with the exception of this species, the male and female organs are equally common, sometimes on the same, sometimes on separate plants. ”

“ The Equisetaceous characteristics mark an isolated division of existing Vascular Cryptogams, and without reference to extinct types it is practically impossible to do more than vaguely guess at the genealogical connections of the family. When we go back to Palaeozoic plants there are indications of guiding lines which point the way to connecting branches between the older Equisetales and other classes of Pteridophytes. The recently discovered genus Cheirostrobus [497] is especially important from this point of view. ”

“ This peculiarity in the history of Small Pox virus suggests a comparison with some phenomena of vegetation, viz. that of grafting or budding. The lower Cryptogamia in their fructifications resemble rather multiplication by buds than by seeds. M. Moyen's idea is that every spore or little globule, independently of its neighbouring one, lives, absorbs, assimilates, grows, and re-produces on its own account; this is certainly the characteristic of the Torula and the Uredo, and doubtless is so of many other of the Cryptogamia, the Protococcus nivalis is another instance. ”

“ Mycetophagidae.—Tarsi four-jointed, slender, the front feet of the male only three-jointed; coxae oval, not deeply embedded; abdomen with five ventral segments, all movable. A small family, of interest chiefly because of the anomaly in the feet of the two sexes, for which it is impossible to assign any reason. The species are small, uninteresting Insects that live chiefly on Cryptogams of various kinds, especially in connection with timber; the larvae being also found there. There are about a dozen species in Britain, and scarcely 100 are described from all the world. ”

“ The experiments of Wilhelm Pfeffer have shown that the male cells of many cryptogams are naturally attracted not merely by the female cells, but also by substances which they have come in contact with under natural conditions, or which have been introduced to them experimentally, in the latter case the substances being sometimes of a kind with which they could not possibly have come in contact, except under the conditions of experiment. ”

“ But the Cryptogams, or Agams, such as heaths, mosses, lichens, mushrooms, fungi, mould, and the like, of which our knowledge, as yet, is very imperfect, are probably much more numerous in species than the Phanerogams; for these vegetables, mostly microscopical, develop themselves wherever life can manifest itself—on the barren and denuded rocks, as well as in the air and in the depths of the ocean. ”

“ At the same time the use of the word Acotyledones for Linnaeus' Cryptogams shows that Jussieu overrated the systematic value of the cotyledons, because, as is seen from the introduction to his 'Genera Plantarum,' he was quite in the dark on the subject of the great difference between the spores of Cryptogamic plants and the seeds of Phanerogams. His conception of the organs of generation was essentially that of Linnaeus; hence he judged of the Cryptogams according to the scheme of the Phanerogams, and, not perceiving their peculiarities, he virtually characterised them by negative marks. ”

“ In connection with the cone, leaves are sometimes developed which form a transition from the barren to the fertile ones (the “annulus” in Equisetaceæ) , and in these cases the first indication of a flower with perianth or floral-leaves is to be traced. Among the Cryptogams the highest division of labour is found in Selaginella and Isoëtes, which have the two kinds of sporangia borne on different leaves. ”

“ A single deviation from the method of Jussieu—the one usually followed by systematic botanists—is made in the case of the gymnosperms, which are separated from the dicotyledons and made a distinct class, coming immediately after the cryptogams. "In nature," the author says, "we find gymnosperms associated with the higher cryptogams in the order of development; they form comprehensive types, including the characters of cryptogams, monocotyledons, and dicotyledons—they are not true dicotyledons" ”

“ In the majority of cases among the isosporous Vascular Cryptogams, the sexual generation—prothallium—is a green, leafy expansion which can sustain itself by the assimilation of carbonic acid, and by the absorption of nutriment from the soil by means of root-hairs. ”

“ In the Devonian age we meet with no land plants of the two97 lower classes of the Cryptogams, and with scarcely any that can be referred to the two higher classes of Phænogams, so that the vegetation of this period presents a remarkable character of mediocrity, being composed almost entirely of the highest class of the flowerless plants and the lowest class of those that flower. ”

“ Botanists generally are agreed in recognizing the five principal groups of Cryptogamia, as natural and distinct. In proportion as we advance from comparison of members of the three kingdoms, through that of the primary groups in one kingdom, to a comparison of tribes, alliances, and orders, we shall require closer observation, and more and more education of the eye to see, and the mind to appreciate, relationships and distinctions. ”

“ It is expected that the enemy will intercept dozens, and even hundreds, of cryptograms in a single day, some of which will inevitably be enciphered with the same key. With so much material, knowing the general subject matter, and often exactly what words to expect, or the personal expressions invariably used by individuals, it is conceded that he will read the messages. All that is desired of a cryptogram is that it will resist his efforts for a sufficient length of time to render its contents valueless when he finally discovers them. ”

“ Thus, there is never a time when it is impossible to see the tens and units as having been separately added; if we find, in a Nihilist cryptogram, the two numbers 29 and 87, with a difference greater than 4 in their respective tens-digits, we may say promptly that they were not enciphered with the same key; no digit whatever added to any two digits of the original square can produce a difference greater than 4. But if the two cryptogram numbers are 30 and 77, where the difference in the tens-digits appears, at first glance, to be only 4, the presence of the zero must be taken into account ”

“ Those which are shorter will give more trouble; but it takes a very short cryptogram indeed to be really resistant.
Our foregoing cryptogram contains only 80 letters.
To apply “pointers” in this case, let us begin by considering the individual frequencies of the letters E T A O N I R S H. Their frequencies per 100, according to our own chart, are about as follows: E, 12; T, 10; A, 8; O, 8; N, 7; I, 7; R, 6; S, 7; H, 5. Thus, when frequency alone is considered, E and T have a tendency to draw away from the others and form a private high-frequency group of their own. ”

“ Thus, when we find, in the present cryptogram, that the numbers 02, 53, and 63, have each a frequency of 2, it seems reasonable to suppose, for each number, that its two occurrences were in a single cipher alphabet; that is, that each one is a periodic repetition. Now, considering Fig. 133, and confining our observations, for the moment, to the number 02, we find that this number, in the cryptogram, occupies serial positions 49 and 154. Having first laid out a series of columns headed by the various possible periods, 2, 3, 4, 5. ”

“ The above two examples have represented the “tough” case. In Fig. 75, where the text is the solution to a crypt by J. Lloyd Hood published as No. 9 in the February, 1932, Cryptogram, we have the average comparatively simple case. The total variety-count is 118, making the isolation count about 23 and throwing the line of demarcation into the group D H Z, where D is the only step-down letter. Every letter in the isolated group is actually a consonant, and step (d) adds the letters T G H Z. On the consonant-line, A, O, and to a lesser extent U, stand out clearly as vowels. ”

“ A very large red species (A. nobilis) occurs in False Bay, Cape of Good Hope, in 30 fathoms of water. In this locality the coral occurs in great submarine beds or forests, and the trawl that is passed over them is torn to pieces by the hard, thick branches, some of which are an inch or more in diameter.
Astylus is a genus found in the southern Philippine sea in 500 fathoms of water. It is distinguished from Stylaster by the absence of a style in the gastropore.
Cryptohelia is an interesting genus found both in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans at depths of from 270 to about 600 fathoms. ”

“ Moreover, for every time that the initial key-number increases in size, there is a corresponding decrease in all numbers occupying the odd serial positions and a corresponding increase in all numbers occupying the even positions.
We have, then, a periodic cryptogram whose period is 2, and two cipher alphabets, consisting of numbers, in which the only difference is one of size. But these substitutes, unlike those of the Vigenère, will not be placed in normal alphabetical order; to complete the solution by one of the general methods, it may become necessary to take a number of frequency counts. ”

“ They are the fossils of the genus Cryptozoon of Hall (Fig. 7 [36] ) , which form great masses filling certain beds of Upper Cambrian age, and which, when sliced and studied microscopically, are found to consist of concentric thin laminæ filled in between with a porous mass of calcareous matter penetrated by an infinity of tortuous tubes. Forms of this kind have been traced downward into pre-Cambrian beds in Colorado, and as we shall find in New Brunswick, into the Upper Laurentian itself. ”

“ The tip of the abdomen is somewhat curved downwards, and, in the female, bears a hollow near the extremity; when an egg is extruded the female holds it in this hollow by means of the hind legs, and envelops it with a covering said to be excrementitious. When the larva hatches, it remains within this case, and {282}subsequently enlarges it by additions from its own body. The beautiful Insects of the genus Cryptocephalus, which is fairly well represented in Britain, belong to this division. ”

“ Whatever key-fragments can be brought out at ZIL, or on another trigram, need be tested only on the three columns which contain the trigram. Even presuming that the evidence has been inconclusive between two or more periods, the cryptogram, necessarily a short one, can be written into each of these probable periods, and the two or more resulting blocks, standing side by side, can be considered more or less simultaneously. Here, with our period determined as 6, the columns of (b) are very short, and the number of trials and erasures should not be many. ”