Bot. [mod.L. Cryptogamia (Linn. 1735), sb. fem., f. Gr. κρυπτός hidden, concealed + γάμος wedding, wedlock + -ία suffix of state: cf. Gr. ἀγαμία unmarried condition, celibacy; in F. cryptogamie.
Like the names of other Linnæan classes and orders, it is a singular noun, and was always so treated in the 18th c.; but in the 19th c., prob. by unthinking confusion with classes and orders of the animal kingdom (e.g., Vertebrata, Mammalia, Carnivora) which are adjs. neuter plural, it has been (first apparently by persons not botanists, and afterwards by some botanists also) misused as a noun plural = CRYPTOGAMS.]
A large division of the vegetable kingdom, being the last class in the Linnæan Sexual system, and comprising those plants which have no stamens or pistils, and therefore no proper flowers; including Fers, Mosses, Algæ, Lichens, and Fungi.
[1735. Linnæus, Syst. Nat. (1740), 74. Cryptogamia vegetabilia sæpe suspecta includit. Ibid. (1737), Gen. Plant. (1742), 500. Classis xxiv Cryptogamia. Cryptogamia continet Vegetabilia, quorum Fructificationes visui nostro sese subtrahunt. Ordines hujus classis sex constituo.]
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp., Cryptogamia, in botany, a class of plants whose flowers are either wholly invisible, or scarce discernable by the eye.
1794. Martyn, Rousseau’s Bot., ix. 96. That class is called cryptogamia, from the circumstance of the fructification being concealed, or not obvious.
1861. H. Macmillan, Footnotes fr. Page Nature, 3. The second great division of the vegetable kingdom, to which the name of cryptogamia has been given.
¶ Erroneously treated as a plural = Cryptogams.
1813. Sir H. Davy, Agric. Chem. (1814), 72. Even in the cryptogamia … as in the more perfect plants.
1856. Miss Mulock, J. Halifax (ed. 17), 337. In order to study the cryptogamia.
1885. Annandale, Imperial Dict., The Cryptogamia are divided into cellular and vascular cryptogams.
Hence Cryptogamian a. (1828 in Webster), Cryptogamic a. (also as sb.), Cryptogamical a., of or pertaining to the class Cryptogamia or to cryptogams; Cryptogamist, a botanist who specially studies cryptogams; Cryptogamous a., of the nature of a cryptogam; Cryptogamy, cryptogamic condition or relations.
1805. Edin. Rev., VI. 134. Among these last [plants], we notice several cryptogamics.
1830. Lindley, Nat. Syst. Bot., 307. The subject of Cryptogamic botany.
1801. Med. Jrnl., V. 370. A country rich in cryptogamical plants.
1830. Lindley, Nat. Syst. Bot., 307. Those great cryptogamists whose lives have been devoted to the study of the subject.
1829. [J. L. Knapp], Jrnl. Naturalist (1830), 382. A cryptogamous plant, which I believe to be the lichen fascicularis.
1870. Bentley, Bot., 10. Flowerless or Cryptogamous Plants.
1796. Pennant, Hist. Whiteford & Holywell, 153. The picturesque dingle Nant-y-bi abounds with what the botanists name the cryptogamous plants. The idea of cryptogamy inspired Timæus with ideas of loves of other kind.
