INTRODUCTION. 



I. INFLORESCENCE. 



As the study of this portion of Cryptoganiic Botany has been ahuost 

 entirely neglected by some of our local students, it will perhaps be 

 useful to explain the method of investigation in some of the species 

 belonging to different genera. That mosses flower, there now 

 appears to be little doubt ; also that the organs called archegonia and 

 antheridca are analagous to the stamens and pistils of cotyledonous 

 (flowering) plants, — the spermatozoids acting in a similar way to the 

 pollen, although no botanist has yet been able to discover the sperma- 

 tozoids entering the tube of the archegonia. When we consider the 

 extreme minuteness of these bodies, which require the aid of the best 

 microscopes to discover even their form, this circumstance is easily 

 explained. 



Examining some plants of Bryum cernuum, a syuoicous species, 

 abundant on the shore at Southport, in September last, my attention 

 was attracted by the red appearance of the tops of some of the stems, 

 and these I dissected under my simple microscope, an instrument indis- 

 pensible to the practical bryologist. The method adopted was the 

 following : — having washed the moss clean, I dropped some water into 

 the centre of the glass, fixed firmly in the brass ring of the instrument, 

 and with a pair of glover's triangular needles, placed in crochet handles, 

 with a screw on the end, forming the cheapest and the best instrument 

 that can be employed, I commenced operations on the plant. On re- 

 moving the perigonial leaves for the purpose of examining the centre, 

 there appeared two very differently shaped organs, the one bag-shaped, 

 the other long and narrow, having, when considerably magnified, a 

 flask-shaped mouth, with a hoUow tube communicating with the centre 

 — this is the Archegonia, or portion of the plant destined to form the 

 reproductive organs, (such as the seta and theca, with its operculum and 

 calyptra), and to ripen the spores contained in the urn-shaped capsule. 

 Some species are provided with an elastic band or ring surrounding 

 the mouth of the peristome and called an annulus, which separates the 

 operculum from the capsule when the seed is mature : the ollice of the 



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