STRUCTURE.] LYCOPODS THEIR OOPHORIDS. 99 



from being spherical, acquire the figure of irregular polygons ; 

 these are the Antheridia of modern writers ; or, 2. containing 

 three or four roundish fleshy bodies, marked at the apex by 

 a three-legged line, and each of which is at least fifty times 

 larger than the granules contained in the first kind of theca ; 

 the latter are also named oophoridia, and are said by Brotero 

 to burst with elasticity. The first kind of theca is found in 

 all species of Lycopodiaceae ; the second is only found in a 

 few. The contents of both are believed to be sporules ; but 

 no satisfactory explanation has yet been offered of the cause 

 of their difference in size, and probably also in structure. 

 I would suggest that the powder-like grains are true sporules, 

 and that the large ones are buds or viviparous organs, as has 

 already been stated by Haller and Willdenow. A writer in 

 the Transactions of the Lmrman Society has figured and de- 

 scribed the growth of the larger grains of Lycopodium denti- 

 culatum, and he considers that they exhibit the germination 

 of a dicotyledonous plant ; but, independently of any mistrust 

 which may attach to the account, it is obvious enough that 

 his own drawings and description represent a mode of germi- 

 nation analogous, not to that of dicotyledons, but rather 

 to that of monocotyledons, and also reducible to the laws 

 which govern the incipient vegetation of a bud. 



The powder-like sporules are inflammable, and have been 

 supposed by Haller, Linnaeus, and others, to be pollen, while 

 the larger have been considered seeds ; and to a part of the 

 surface of the theca the office of stigma has been attributed. 

 The thecse themselves have been fancied to be male apparatus 

 by Koelreuter and Gsertner. 



Both kinds of theca, the oophoridium, and antheridium, 

 have been critically examined by Karl Muller, whose obser- 

 vations are the latest upon the subject. 



" The oophoridium," says this author, " is the whole meta- 

 morphosed terminal bud of a main axis. It is therefore an 

 axial organ." 



This opinion is supported upon the following grounds : 

 The position of the oophoridium is opposite the spike in the 

 early condition, and hence he regards the oophoridium and 

 spike as two metamorphosed branches into which a main 



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