Royal Mierosco2neal Society. 273 



bangs downward like the pendent branches. Each male flower of 

 the catkin consists of one archegonium, which stands laterally to the 

 supporting bract, to which it bears precisely the same relation as a 

 branch fascicle does to its stem leaf. The covering leaves are nsnally 

 more closely imbricated than the branch leaves, and in S. acuti- 

 folium are of a fine carmine colour ; in 8. euspidatum, ochreous ; 

 in S. fimhriatuyn, lively green ; in 8. suhseeundu7n, olive green, &c. 



The perigyninm or sheath of the female flower is readily recog- 

 nized by its long conical form and deep-green colour, and stands on 

 one of the short lateral branches of the capitulum ; the inner leaves 

 are much elongated, and enclose one to four archegonia, only one of 

 which, however, developes into fruit. As the pseudopodium, or 

 peduncle of the fruit receptacle elongates, it usually happens that 

 the leaves it supports are also drawn farther apart. 



In the young capsule the sporangium only reaches a little way 

 below its middle, the rest of the cavity being filled with a soft pale- 

 green cell-mass; in the ripe capsule, on the contrary, we find 

 nearly the whole internal space empty, the columella has broken 

 away from the vault of the sporangium, and along with the cellular 

 mass has shrivelled back to the base of it, but the sporangium, 

 firmly cohering with the hning stripped from the inner wall of the 

 capsule, is left hanging in its upper orifice, where it stays, until by 

 contraction of the capsule the lid is forced ofi" with a httle explosion, 

 by which the contents are expelled. The outer wall we find 

 consists of cells forming longish hexagonal meshes, presenting a 

 nodule at each angle, brittle, thickened, and yellow-brown in colour, 

 scattered among which are numerous small stomata. 



Frequently the lid remains fixed at one point to the rim of the 

 capsule, which it closes again when moistened, moving as if on a 

 hinge; and when. the fruit remains under water, the lid often does 

 not open, but the capsule, with its contents, falls away from the 

 vaginula, and as the columella decays, the spores escape through 

 the aperture, or if they have already begun to germinate, their 

 expansion forces off the lid also, leaving the old capsule wall with a 

 large round opening at each pole, one corresponding to the lid, the 

 other to the insertion of the pedicel, and such frequently come into 

 the field of our microscope when operating on tufts of Sphagnum. 



