Some Questions which they Suggest. 47 



sometimes free and lie loose amongst the spores, and, in 

 other cases, are joined together into a system a regular 

 capillitium, attached to the base of the sporangium. The 

 Jungermannia epiphylla is a good illustration of such a 

 regular system of hairs. In both groups the hairs or elaters 

 appear to perform the same duties, of assisting by a pressure 

 from within in forcing the sporangia open and of dispersing 

 the spores by means of their hygroscopic activities. 



In some sporangia, the most marked feature is a 

 columella i.e., a, prolongation of the pedicel, usually forming 

 a column or a central line through the sporangium, but 

 sometimes hemispherical and globose. In some genera it 

 extends to only part of the height of the sporangium; 

 sometimes to its entire height. A portion of such 

 columella is seen in Fig. 13. To the columella the system 

 of hairs is attached in many divers forms and ways. In 

 Lamproderma the column reaches part of the way up the 

 sporangium, and from near its summit it gives off a great 

 mass of hairs spreading in every direction, so as to form a 

 globe of anastomosing hairs. In Enerthenema the column 

 is carried to the top of the sporangium, and spreads into a 

 sort of capital, the top of which is part of the surface of the 

 sporangium, and here the globe of slightly branching hairs is 

 attached to the top, and falls down and fills the sporangium. 



More complicated and more beautiful forms arise when 

 the hairs branch out from all along the columella, and 

 anastomose with one another so as to form a perfect 

 network. In these cases the whole of the walls of the 

 sporangium is supported by the ends of the hairs, and is 



