SELECTED NOTES. 281 



The capsule may be globular, straight, curved, upright, 

 drooping, corrugated, ventricose, or almost any shape from a 

 sphere (Fig. 6) to an upright cylinder (Fig. 7). It may be twisted, 

 striated, or irregular, as in Fig. 8. The capsule proper may be 

 placed on a large swelling of the setje, termed an " apophysis," 

 when the latter development is sometimes, relatively, a large bulk 

 of tissue compared to the true spore-bearing organ at its summit, 

 as is instanced in SpIacJuium vasculosum (Fig. 9). This apophysis, 

 /, in some species of Splachnacece, often gaily coloured, as in .S". 

 pedunculaium^ see Fig. 10. 



The capsule may be immersed in the leaves, as in Grimmia 

 apocarpa^ and the whole plant may be only about one-eighth of an 

 inch in height, as in Pkuridiu77i axillai'e (Fig. 11), or it may be 

 borne on a long seta, as in Atrichiim. 



The stem may be almost absent, or it may branch and spread 

 in all directions, often giving rise to the most beautiful design, as 

 in Thamniiun alopiairum^ and Thuidiiwi ta maris cinum. 



The peristome, one of the most beautiful objects in nature, 

 may be single, as shown in Fig. 4, or absent, as in Figs. 5, 6, and 

 7, or double, as in Hypniim and Brachythecium. It may stand 

 out like an array of needles, as in Racomitriiim canesce?is, or it 

 may fold over the edge, like the teeth of Tetraplodo7i^ or as in 

 Fig. 10. The teeth may be bent obliquely with lateral projections, 

 as in Funaria, or they may be twisted into a string, as in the 

 majority of the Barbulas, or as shown in Fig. 13. Sometimes, as 

 in Orthotrichum rivulare^ may be found three types of teeth, 

 viz., eight broad, eight filiform, with eight short ones alternating, 

 as in Fig. 12. 



Hitherto we have been considering the normal fructification 

 of the Moss family, but these plants frequently multiply in 

 another manner, namely, by means of buds, or " gemmae," which 

 are detached from the parent plant, and vvhich under favourable 

 conditions reproduce the mature form from which it originated. 

 They are often produced upon the enlarged midrib of the leaf 

 (when the leaf has one) as in Ulota phyllantha ; in fact it is the 

 usual method of reproduction in this species. Hobkirk, in the 

 1884 edition of British Mosses, says that " the fruit is not known," 

 but it has since been found, as Braithwaite gives a figure of it in 



