and Us relation to that in the Animal Kingdom. 345 



pollen-grains — not, however, in the same sense as by Linnaeus— 

 by Valentine* and Schleidenf, so long as the latter regarded 

 the pollen-grain as the vegetable ovum. 



The antheridia consist, in the Liverworts J, of an ellipsoidal 

 mass of small cubic cells, which are enclosed by a layer of larger 

 cells containing chlorophyll ; sometimes they are imbedded in 

 the frondose stem {Riccia, Pellia), or on a special receptacle {Mar- 

 chantiece) ; sometimes they are borne on small cellular pedicels 

 on the frond {Fossombj-onia), or on the axils of the leaves (leafy 

 Jungermanniea>) . In the Mosses § their structure is the same, 

 but their form is in general more cylindrical, their place at the 

 end of the stem (of the shoot). In the interior of each of those 

 cubic cells, which, when the antheridium is perfectly ripe, separate 

 from their fellows and become absorbed, is formed, nearly filling 

 it, a lenticular vesicle (daughter-cell ? — see on this point Nageli ||, 

 who calls it a 'seminal utricle' = samen-bldschen) , in which is 

 developed a spirally-coiled spermatozoid^. After the escape of 

 the vesicle from the opened apex of the antheridium, each sper- 

 matozoid is set free, by rupture or solution of the vesicle, and 

 moves about in the water by the help of two long cilia. 



Schmidel**, to whom we are indebted for the knowledge of the 

 antheridia of Liverworts, detected the motion of the discharged 

 contents of the antheridia of Fossomhronia pusilla, without clearly 

 perceiving the spermatozoids themselves ; the same was the case 

 with Nees v. Esenbeck in respect to Sphagnum capillifolium-[-f. 

 The latter regarded the vesicles, set in motion by the still en- 



* Trans. Linn. Soc. xvii. London, 1837. 



t Grundz. wiss. Botanik. 



X Vide on this point the excellent works of — 



Nees V. Esenbeck, Naturgesch. d. europ. Lebermoose. Berhn, 1833. 



G. W. BischofF, Bemerk. iib. die Lebermoose. Nova Acta A. C. L. C. 

 xvii. pt. 2. p. 924. 



J. B. W. Lindenberg, Monogr. der Riccien. Nov. Act. A. C. L. C. xviii. 

 pt. 1. p. 392. 



C. M. Gottsche, Ueb. Haplomitr. HooJceri. Nova Acta, xx. pt. 1. p. 293, 



Hofmeister, Vergleich. Untersuch. &c., hoh. Krypt. Leips. 1851. 



Thuret, Rech. sur les Antheridies des Cryptog. Ann. des Sc. nat. 3 ser. 

 xvi. (1851). 



§ See W. P. Schimper, Rech. anat. et morpholog. sur les Mousses, 

 Strasburg, 1848. 



Thuret, I. c. 



Hofmeister, I. c, and Botan. Zeit. 1849, p. 793. 



II Zeitschr. f. wiss. Botanik, Heft 3 & 4. Zurich, 1846, p. 105. 



if Schacht believes that he has certainly observed that the spiral filaments 

 are produced from the nuclei of the cells, of which one exists in each of the 

 daughter-cells formed in fours inside the antheridium-cells. Vide Pflan- 

 zenzelle. Berlin, 1852, pp. 107, 112; Ueb. Antherid. der Leberm. Bot, 

 Zeit. 1852, p. 155. 



** Icones Plant, ed. 2. Erlang. 1793, i. p. 85. no. 5. pi. 22. fig. 8. 



tt Flora, 1822, B. i. p. 33. pi. k 



