EU R O PE AND N O R TH AMERICA. 23
when he found that dehiscence took place after about an hours
immersion; he then placed in water also some antheridia, which
on rupturing charged the fluid with abundance o f antherozoids, and
¿ome o f this he added to the other preparation.
H e found that the antherozoids did not seem to have any
tendency to direct themselves towards the entrance o f the canal,
but reached it fortuitously, and then appeared to introduce themselves
with difficulty; the ciliated extremity which consists o f an
amylaceous granule always goes first, and it is sometimes arrested
b y the plasma in the canal, and then struggles to d e a r itself; this
accomplished, it moves on more briskly until it reaches the
germinative globule suspended in the fluid in the archegonial
c a v i ty ; on this it fixes itself, all movement ceases, and a direct
fusion o f the two appears to take place.
Only one archegonium develops into fruit, and after impregnation
the apex and canal become coloured red or yellow; the pedicel
then enlarges, for the fertilized germinal cell passes down into it
to become the fruit, and bears the now hollow ventral portion with
the shrivelled stylidium on its apex. T h is germinal cell is pyriform
and contains a large nucleus, and as soon as impregnation takes
place, active cell multiplication is set up, and the single cell
becomes an oblong body filled with slimy fluid and minute granules,
and the pedicel is no longer defined from the ventral p a r t ; through
the soft pedicel the embryo fruit forces its w ay down, and so into
the interior o f the fruit receptacle, which has become elongated
and obtusely conical.
Next, the embedded pedicel o f the embryo expands in width by
cell multiplication, and becomes a hemispherical protuberance
elevated above the dome-shaped receptacle. T h e cells lying at
the base of the pedicel alone continue to divide transversely, and
the pedicel itself becomes nearly spherical, and not being able to
penetrate farther downward, it with the cuticular and peripheral
layers covering it becomes elevated upward. During the rapid
extension o f the lower part o f the fruit, the inner cellular texture
o f the lower portion o f the archegone has disappeared, and the
rudimentary capsule has developed to a short cylinder, its outer coat
consisting o f a single layer o f v e ry thin cells, which corresponds to
the calyptra, gradually stretches, becomes still thinner by the
swelling o f the young capsule, until it bursts or tears into shreds ;
rapid cell multiplication goes on in the fruit, and a spherical capsule
results, whose outer coat consists o f two cell layers, beneath which
lies another series of three strata, the central o f these consisting of
rather larger cells become parent cells o f spores, while the stratum
on each side o f it represents the inner and outer wall o f the future
spore sac. T h e mother cells o f the spores are globular, and their
contents divide transversely b y cross walls into four pyramidal
spores ; or each o f these again divides into four to form the rarer
microspores. _ ^
T he per fe c t F r u it .
T h e capsule is normally placed in the capitulum, but it frequently
happens that a rapid extension o f the internodes takes
place, and thus the fruits are left behind at various heights on the
stem ; this usually happens by some change in the local conditions,
as, for instance, a sudden submergence o f the plants by a wet
season.
A s the fruit receptacle elongates to a pseudopodium it draws
apart also the perichætial bracts, which are larger than the leaves
and surround it at the base, and to a greater or less extent above
it, according to its rapidity or slowness o f growth.
T h e Sphagna were by all the early bryologists described as
being without a vaginula, and Bridel formed them into a separate
section termed Evaginulati, but Professor Schimper indicates as
the vaginula the turbinate swelling below the capsule, which
is the dilated apex o f the receptacle. In the A c ta Soc. Scient.
Fenniccc, x. p. 264, Professor Lindberg points out that the
pseudopodium which carries the fruit differs from a branch in
having the same number o f cuticular cell strata as the stem,
though not so well developed, and that this organ is truly nothing
else but an elongated vaginula. Up to the maturity o f the capsule
it remains enclosed in the perichætium, the receptacle then elongates
and elevates the capsule, which is inserted b y its bulbiform
pedicel in the expanded apex.
T h e calyptra is the continuation upward o f the outer cell layer
of the vaginula and fruit receptacle, and is ve ry thin and colourless ;
it encloses the young capsule like a sac closely stretched over it,
and does not separate in any determinate way as in mosses, but is
ruptured irregularly by the enlargement o f the capsule and splits
into shreds, a portion being generally left attached to the base o f
the capsule.
T h e capsule is ve ry uniform in all the species, being almost