Mr. DnrMMoyn on the Germination of }fosses. 



duced in pots of earth, I had an opportunity of observing their 

 true structure, which I found to agree in many particulars with 

 Hedwig's account and figures of tin- same muss, as given in vol.i. 

 part ii. of the Supplement to the Encyclopedia Britanmca; but 

 I was not able, by the most careful examination, to discover the 

 roots which Hedwig figures and describes, 



The seeds of mosses in germinating produce only one kind of 

 appendages, which Hedwig describes as cotyledons ; but to me 

 they appear to differ essentially from ;my of the parts ire are 

 acquainted with in the seeds of phrcnogamous plants. 



In Funaria hifgromctvica they make their appearance 1 on the se- 

 cond day after sowing, in the form of pellucid points, evidently 

 growing out of the substance of the seed. On die fourth day 

 each minute plant had from one to three of these appendages, 

 each appendage growing out of a different part of the brown 

 covering of the seed, which sometimes appeared torn, as de- 

 scribed by Hedwig, from the bursting out of these filaments. 

 On the seventh day they appeared, when magnified with the 

 highest power of a compound microscope, to be about two lines 

 in length, obtuse, jointed ; and when growing in water, having 

 some green-coloured particles appearing within them, similar to 

 what we find deposited in the cells of the leaves in a more ad- 

 vanced state of the plant. But I observed that some of the 

 articulated filaments in the pots of earth penetrated the soil in 

 every direction and formed the roots, those filaments only being 

 of a green colour which were growing on the surface. On 

 the tenth day I found these filaments beginning to throw out 

 branches. In a fortnight the surface of the pots appeared as if 

 covered with green velvet, from the numerous branched fila- 

 ments that covered every part of the soil. About the end of the 

 third week the true leaves of the moss began to make their ap- 

 pearance, shooting up amongst the green articulated filaments, 

 vol. xin. e and 



