344 Dr. L. Radlkofer on Fecundation in the Vegetable Kingdom, 



XXXV. — The Process of Fecundation in the Vegetable Kingdom, 

 and its relation to that in the Animal Kingdom. By Dr. L. 

 Radlkofer. 



[Continued from p. 262.] 



4. Mosses. 



The opinion that the antheridia of Mosses constitute the male 

 reproductive organs of these plants^ is as old as the observation 

 that they are matured and their contents discharged at the same 

 epoch as that at which the archegonia are developed, — as old, in 

 fact, as any minute investigation of the characters of Mosses. 

 Micheli*, Dilleniusf, Linnaeus J, and Haller§, generally compared 

 the spores of the Mosses with the pollen-grains of the Phanero- 

 gamia^and therefore took the capsule for the male and the antheri- 

 dia for the female organs ; while Micheli, Schreber || , and others 

 had proclaimed the paraphyses, Hill^ the teeth of the peristome, 

 Kolreuter** the calyptra, Schmidelft the cells between the inner 

 and outer walls of the capsule, Miller J { the upper part of the 

 columella inserted in the operculum, and O. F. Miiller§§ (in the 

 Jungermanniese) the abortive archegonia — as male organs; — 

 Hedwig II II, however, first observed the development of the young 

 plants from the spores, detected the relation in time in which 

 the perfect condition of the antheridia, first discovered by him 

 in the majority of Mosses (to which, also, Schmidel^1[ ascribed a 

 fecundating office), stood to the archegonia, and in consequence 

 of this pronounced decidedly for the above-mentioned view. 

 This opinion remained predominant from that time ; and while, 

 in recent times, more definite evidence was, with right, required 

 of the sexuality of the plants, yet, in the face of the continually 

 multiplying observations of the sterility of dioecious Mosses in 

 the absence of antheridium-bearing individuals, criticism could 

 scarcely do more than cause Hedwig^s opinion to be expressed 

 with a little less determination. Still more lately, however, an 

 analogy was sought to be established between the spores and 



* Nova Gen. Plant. Flor. 1729, p. 108. pi. 59, n. j. 

 t Histor. Muscorura. Oxon. 1741. 

 X Syst. Natur. ed. 12. Holm. 1767, ii. p. 698. 

 § Historia Stirpium. Bern. 1768. 



II J. Ch. D. Schreber, De Phasco Observationes. Lips. 1770, p. xix. 

 i[ History of Plants. London, 1751. 



** Das entdeckte Geheimn. der Krypt. Karlsruhe, 1777, pp- 34, 133. 

 ft Dissert, de Buxbauraia. Erlang. 1758, § xxiv. p. 37. 

 XX Illustration of the Sex. System of Linnaeus. London, 1779, i. p. 104, 

 pi. 103. figs. 10-13. 



§§ Flor. Friedrichsdal. Argentor. 1767, p. 188, no. 378. 

 nil Theoria Generat. et Fruct. Plant. Crypt. Petrop. 1784. 

 HH Icones Plant, ed. 2. Erlang. 1793, i. p. 85. no. 4. 



