A Grammatical Dictionary of Botanical Latin

Fundamentum,-i (s.n.II), abl. sg. fundamento 'a foundation, basis; ground-work (preliminary or basic work for something that will happen later); (used mostly in the plural in classical times); the bottom; = fundus,-i (s.m.II) q.v.;

- [Braun; algae] Satis cognitum est, primum, quod oritur, plantae nascentis germen et fundamentum corpus esse uniforme et indifferens, externae formae aeque ac interni contextus differentiis fere nullis, quod adparet apud plantas phanerogamas formatione sacculi embryonalis (*) denique in endospermii corpus mutati, cui apud cryptogamas vasculares proembryon sive prothallium respondet (Braun), it is sufficiently well known, that the first thing that arises [i.e. comes to be] of the nascent plant to be the embryo, and the foundation [i.e. ground-work] to be a body uniform and undifferentiated, and the flesh [i.e. the tissue] of the outer form is to be the same as the internal, with almost no distinctions, which is evident among phanerogamous plants with the formation of the embryonal sac, and finally in the body of the transformed endosperm, to which among vascular cryptogams the proembryo or the prothallium corresponds.