14 BEITISH MOSSES. 



in the spring of the year, are objects of great, but, I fear, 



often neglected, beauty. 



The antherids burst and give out swarms of small 

 bodies, known as antherizoids, con- 

 sisting of roundish cells containing in 

 the interior a spiral thread, which 

 produces a rotatory movement in the 

 containing cell. Fig. 9 represents such 



antherizoids. These little bodies find 

 Fia. 9. Antlieri- 



zoids, showing their way to the canals of the archegone, 



After^Schimper! P ass down itf and enter tlie OOSphere, 

 and so effect that union of two in- 

 dependent cells which produces fertilization. 



In the account which we have given of the life-history 

 of a Moss it will be remembered that we started with 

 a single cell in the shape of a spore, in which was 

 wrapped up the whole future of the life of the plant ; 

 that from that single cell all the successive developments 

 which we have been tracing have had their origin ; and 

 that we have then got back again to another cell, the 

 fertilized oosphere, in which are again involved all the future 

 life of the plant. We have travelled from cell to cell ; the 

 first part of the history of the plant, the so-called oophytic 

 generation, is complete, and a new part of the history is to 

 begin. 



Now, what does the fertilized oosphere do ? It begins a 

 new career. It enlarges; it produces what is known as 

 the sporogone: it sends up a stalk, often of considerable 

 length and tenuity. This bursts the archegone and carries 

 up with it the upper part of the cell, which forms the 



