07 



and minoi' or baiclana, are very different in appearance, but are so 

 closely connected by forms of intermedium, that it is difficult to say 

 to which some specimens should be referred, and I am inclined to 

 think a threefold division of the genus may be more correct than a 

 twofold, while perhaps the real truth will be that they will all prove to 

 be forms of the same species, but 1 am not yet prepared fully to admit 

 this view of the subject. If the attention of botanists in different 

 places is called to it, a more satisfactory solution oi the difficulty may 



be arrived at. 



G. 8. Gibson. 

 Saffron Walden, 



Febmarj 10, 1851. 



Remarks on the Spirilla or Spermatozoides of Mosses. 

 By VV. Wilson, Esq. 



More than a year ago I commenced in earnest ray observations of 

 these very singular bodies, whose active movements when just at 

 maturity caused me long ago to overlook them as animalcules, whicli 

 had intruded themselves into the antheridia. They are well worth 

 the stud} of every possessor of a good microscope. The representa- 

 tion of their form given in Lindley's ' Vegetable Kingdom,' and indeed 

 in all the works I have yet seen, not excepting Dr. W. P. Schimper's 

 excellent ' Recherches Anatomiques et Morphologiques Sur les Mous- 

 ses,' is unsatisfactory. The shape and size of the spirilla are both 

 variable in different species of moss, but not so much so as to justify 

 the published figures. The best examples are found in all the spe- 

 cies of Sphagnum, where the massive portion of the spirillum is truly 

 sausage-shaped, not gradually tapering into a spirally-folded tail ; the 

 tail itself being attached to the back and not at one end of the body, 

 and about five or six times as long when drawn out, forming a helix 

 of one turn and a half or rather more, while the spirillum is in active 

 motion, and immersed in fluid. On drying, the spiral fibre is uncoiled, 

 and assumes various forms. In the antheridia of Polytrichuni the 

 spirilla are confined, up to a late period, in the cavities of cellular 

 tissue, each cellule containing a single spirillum, whose gyrations are 

 (while still in confinement) even more rapid and energetic than those 

 of Sphagnum. These bodies have been seen in the antheridia of Splach- 

 num, of various Hypna, and indeed in so many other genera of mos- 

 ses, that there is good reason to conclude that they exist universally 



