142 



B 



A 



Fig. 107. — Polytrichujii co7n7nitne. 

 A. B, mature plants with sporo- 

 gone ; C, male plant (nat. size). 



MUSCLXE.E 



that the antherids are suppressed. The male 

 flowers present much greater variety in form 

 and appearance ; the male perianth or peri- 

 gone is usually composed of broader, shorter, 

 and thicker leaves, which sometimes sheath 

 at the base, and are not unfrequently red. 

 The flowers themselves are ovoid, globular, 

 or discoid ; the antherids usually stand in 

 the axils of metamorphosed leaves. Both 

 male and female flowers are provided with 

 barren segmented filaments or paraphyses. 

 In the male flowers the paraphyses are fili- 

 form, club-shaped, or spathulate, and termi- 

 nate in several rows of cells ; in the female 

 flowers they are simple filiform bodies com- 

 posed of a single row of cells. Their function 

 appears to be to keep the archegones moist 

 until they have been fertilised by the anthe- 

 rozoids. 



The first antherid appears to be a terminal 

 structure, being developed out of the apical 

 cell of a branch. An hermaphrodite flower 

 is probably derived from two independent 

 shoots, the female shoot being formed im- 

 mediately beneath the male organs. The 

 mature antherid is a stalked club-shaped, or 

 less often spherical sac, with a wall com- 

 posed of only a single layer of cells. In the 

 Sphagnacefe it opens by longitudinal de- 

 hiscence ; in the other orders by an apical slit 

 through which the antherozoids, still enclosed 

 in their mother-cells, are discharged as a 

 thick mucilaginous mass, being imbedded in 

 a jelly which is expelled in jets when the an- 

 therid bursts, but which is soluble in water. 

 The antherozoids then escape from their 

 mother-cell walls, and swim about as filiform 

 bodies, furnished at the anterior end with 

 two slender vibratile cilia, and containing a 

 number of starchy granules. The male in- 

 florescence of Polytrichum exhibits a re- 

 markable tendency to prolification (see fig. 



