409 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 
put, almost in that state, into a new flower-pot, covered with a small 
cap-glass, and only supplied with water through the pores of the pot. 
When the young plant was formed, I removed the surface an inch deep, 
and found the green confervoid filaments, which the plant always pro- 
duces on its first appearance over ground, again produced, and in due 
time the leaves too. Thus a singular analogy exists between Mosses 
and Fungi, and I have pointed out above an equally curious one with 
Ferns and Equiseta. 
This arid country affords few Ferns, perhaps because of the difficulty 
they experience in getting over what I term their Marchantia state. 
We have but few weeks in a year when these plants can make any 
progress in that stage; but, like the Mosses, they return, as it were, 
to the charge with every shower of rain. I was actually near sending 
you one lately, believing it to be a species of Jungermannia! I have 
watched a patch for nearly two years, and as yet only a few of them 
have been able to assume their Fern form. : 
Funaria hygrometrica is far more luxuriant and abundant here than 
in Britain, delighting to grow in the burned earth, of which we have 
so much. The seeds, which its numerous capsules contain, are lighter, 
when quite dry, than the atmospheric air which is near the surface of 
the earth: thus they naturally float till they find their equilibrium, when 
they are wafted by the wind, and, descending in rain, afford a beautiful 
illustration of the cause why this Moss is found all over the globe, 
whether the countries have risen from the sea, the work of insects, or 
been ejected in the form of burning lava, through the bowels of the earth. 
. The articulated confervoid plant, which the late Mr. Dickson called 
Conferva bullosa, but which I do not now find in books under that 
name, is for the same reason to be discovered in water wherever ex- 
posed to the air; for it is neither more nor less than the seeds of Fu- 
naria hygrometrica, which have germinated in water: 
l am just returned from a journey to the north-east, undertaken 
principally with a view to procure seeds of my beautiful Lawrencella 
lanceolata. I rejoice to say that this object was gained, and that I also 
gathered several interesting plants, among them three new Dryandras, 
which, with one equally novel species, found in my expedition to the 
east, make no fewer than four undescribed kinds of this genus, de- 
tected by me this season. The lovely Chamelaucium dilatatum also 0€-- 
k : 
Vaid. 
