206 



SUSPECTED PARASITISM IN A MOSS. 



BY 



T. Ekambaram, M.A., L.T. 

 Presidency College, Madras. 



The Mosses, though of very common occurrence and of wide 

 distribution, have received little attention from the botanist as regards 

 their physiology of nutrition. In the eighties, there were two 

 opinions about the function of rhizoids in mosses. In 1886, Vaizy x 

 showed experimentally that there was no transpiration current in the 

 stem of a moss because no eosin rose into the stem when the cut end 

 was dipped in a solution. Vaizy held that all water absorption wa^ 

 done by the leaves. Later, Haberlandt 2 wrote that, a study of 

 rhizoids in mosses and a consideration of their abundance and 

 extensive branching in the soil, had led him to believe that their 

 function was not merely fixation but was also absorptive, A 

 different aspect of the function of rhizoids is met with in saprophytic 

 mosses, though only very few thorough saprophytes with colourless 

 aerial portions are known. The others have a green aerial portion but 

 their rhizoids penetrate into dead organic substratum. The rhizoids 

 in these are described as being minutely sub-divided and as having 

 the appearance of fungal hyphae with H shaped connections or netted 

 masses. 



Observations made by the author on a species cf moss, common 

 in Madras, may be of interest, as they show that the rhizoids are, in 

 the early stages, parasitic on colonies of algae, a habit not hitherto 

 suspected in mosses. 



The moss grows on walls coated with lime and exposed to the 

 rains during the monsoon weather. Before the rains, the wall has a 

 debris of old dried up mosses on it. After the rains in two or 

 three days, the dried up stumps put forth a few leaves by the growth 

 of the dormant buds at their tips and small green plants dot the 

 surface of the wall. New rhizoids develop immediately below the 

 cluster of leaves and fresh buds are formed in between the plants 

 from the old rhizoids which contain food material stored in them. 

 At the same time, this portion of the wall and also fresh areas sur. 

 rounding it get coated with a dirty green colour due to the growth 



1 Vaizy, J. Reynolds : Ann. of Bat. Vol. 1 ; £>. 148. 



» Jlaberlandt; Physiological Plant 4nqtomy ; Enq. Ed. 1914, pp. 226—280, 

 72-5. 



