148... Proceedings of Philosophical Societies. [Auc. 
that have four stigmata, and in which the fruit is evidently qua- 
drangular, at least in some of its parts. Such in particular are the 
scheenus mariscus, the gahnia psiltacorum of M. de la Billardiere, 
and a very remarkable new genus brought from the Cape by M. du 
Petit Thouars, and which M., de Beauvois calls ¢eéraria, on account 
of the repetition of a quaternary number in the different parts of 
its flower. 
M. de Beauvois concludes from his observations that the number 
of stigmata has an importance more than suflicient to furnish the 
generic characters. This will be so much the more advantageous, 
as some genera of cyperew have very numerous species, very diffi- 
cult to distinguish. 
M. de Beauvois has likewise made new observations, which in 
his opinion more and more confirm a notion which he has long 
entertained and supported, respecting the fructification of mosses ; 
namely, that the green powder which fills the urns, and which 
Hedwig considers as the seed, is nothing else than the pollen; and 
that the true seed is contained in what botanists term the columella 
of the urn. 
M. de Beauvois has remarked, that at first this green powder, 
like the pollen, is nothing else than a compact, shapeless mass, 
which gradually acquires consistence, and at last divides into powder, 
the grains of which are united by small filaments, and composed 
each of two or three small compartments, full of a humor com- 
parable to the awa seminalis of ordinary pollen; and mixed with 
other smaller grains which are opaque and ovoid. This successive 
division holds equally with the powder contained in the reniform 
bodies of the lycopodie, and in the interior of the mushrooms 
called lycoperdons. The little central body regarded hitherto as a 
eolumella, which varies in form in different genera, but preserves 
nearly the same shape in the same genera, and to which in all 
cases the green powder is attached, terminates in an appendix, 
which is prolonged in the opercula of the urn, and which falls cf 
with that opercula; so that the pretended columella is then open, 
doubtless to facilitate the escape of the little grains which M. de 
Beauvois has observed there, and which he considers as seeds. 
This skilful botanist has observed that in the polytricha and other 
mosses the small filaments which Hedwig considers as aathere are 
still perfect at a period when the powder in the urn has acquired its 
full developement, But the contrary ought to be the case if these 
filaments were male organs, They ought to have performed their 
function and to be decayed, before the green powder, considered as 
the seed, “has come to a state of maturity. Hence M. de Beauvois 
concludes that the filaments in question are rather female organs. 
The mosses, then, belong to the class of polygamia; for M. de. 
Beauvois shows that the small opaque grains which he has seen in 
the columella were also seen and represented by Hedwig, at least in 
the bryum striatum. The urns of mosses, then, according to M. 
de Beauvois, are incontestably hermaphrodite flowers. 
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