MOSS DEVELOPMENT. 33 
MOSS DEVELOPMENT. 
By WILLIAM STANLEY. 
(Continued from page 15.) 
HE sexual organs of Mosses, with the exception of the male 
branches of Sphagnum, usually occur in considerable numbers 
at the end of a leafy axis, surrounded by leaves often of a peculiar 
shape and mixed with paraphyses, and the whole group of organs, 
which may be termed a receptacle, either terminates the growth 
of a primary stem, as in the Acrocarpous Mosses; or, as in the 
Pleurocarpous Mosses, the receptacle is placed at the end of a stem 
of the second or third order. 
The receptacle may contain either one kind of sexual organ 
only, in which case it is either monoicous or dioicous, or it may 
contain both antheridia and archegonia, and is then termed bisexual 
or synoicous. . 
In Funaria hygrometrica, Dicranum undulatum, &c., the male 
receptacles appear on smaller plants with a shorter duration of life, 
and the habit of the male flowers is altogether different from that 
of the synoicous or bisexual inflorescence. 
In the synoicous plant the archegonia and antheridia occur 
close to one another, at the summit of the stem, in the centre of 
the envelope (Perichztium), either in two groups, or separated by 
peculiar enveloping leaves, and the antheridia stand in the axils 
of these, arranged in a spiral surrounding the central group of the 
archegonia. 
In the female and synoicous inflorescence the form of the Peri- 
chetium is that of an elongated, almost closed bud, the leaves of 
which grow very vigorously after fertilization, while the male Peri- 
chzetium consists of broader, firmer leaves, and is of three different 
forms. Usually it is bud-shaped, and, when lateral, its leaves 
decrease in size towards the outside. Secondly,—When terminal 
on a stouter shoot and globular, it is shaped like a capitulum, and 
sometimes borne on a naked pedicel, as in Tayloria, Splachnum, 
&c. Thirdly,—It is sometimes discoid, and consists of leaves 
very different from the foliage leaves, being broader and shorter, 
and always smaller the nearer the leaf spiral approaches the centre. 
The antheridia stand in their axils, Mnium, Polytrichum, Pogo- 
natum, Dawsonia. 
The paraphyses stand between or by the side of the sexual 
organs, their function being to preserve the vitality of the anthe- 
ridia and archegonia by keeping up a certain amount of moisture. 
In the female receptacle they are always articulated filaments ; 
