THE HIGHER CRYPTOGAMIA. 31 



(originally tabular) mother-cell. The turns of the spiral are 

 drawn out from one another, so that it assumes the form of 

 a screw. The spermatozoicl moves about with some rapidity 

 in the water, keeping up a continual revolution round its 

 own axis, and often dragging behind it the ruptured vesicle. 

 The hinder end of the spermatozoicl is drawn out into a very 

 long, fine point ; the opposite end is thickened, but hardly 

 perceptibly so. At this end I saw very clearly, in sperma- 

 tozoids whose motion had been arrested by a solution of 

 iodide of potash, two long, thin, lateral cilia, exactly like 

 those which Thuret discovered in the spermatozoa of Chara. 

 The observation of these cilia, which I could not succeed in 

 finding in any other liverwort, is a matter of some difficulty 

 even in Pellia with our present magnifying powers. The cilia, 

 and the thread-shaped ends of the spermatozoa, which some- 

 times adhere to other bodies, exhibit an active motion which 

 is winding and helicoid rather than pendulous. One end of 

 a spermatozoicl will often remain attached to the mucila- 

 ginous mass which escapes w 7 ith it from the ripe anthe- 

 ridium. The movements of the spermatozoa last only a 

 short time ; ten minutes after their escape they relax sen- 

 sibly ; in all the cases which I have observed, they have 

 ceased entirely after two hours and a half.* 



The number of the anthericlia is very large ; it often 

 amounts to fifty on the same shoot. They first open at the 

 beginning of May ; but even at the end of June a good 

 number of ripe ones may still be found. Upon Pellice 

 growing in running water, which, as a rule, are barren, iso- 

 lated anthericlia are not mifrecmently found; but arche- 

 gonia are hardly ever met with. 



Upon the shoots situated in the indentations of the fore edge 

 of those spring-shoots which bear anthericlia, oval, closely 

 packed cellular bodies are protruded, varying in number from 

 four to twelve; these are the first rudiments of the archegonia. 

 Immediately after their appearance, the young shoot makes a 

 further growth underneath them, but without attaining to 



* Thuret has shown that spermatozoa of a like structure exist in all the 

 Muscineae. (' Ann. Sc. Nat.,' 3rd ser., vol. xvi). He has given very good 

 figures of those of Pellia (1. c, pi. x). Schacht's figures ('Die Pilaiizenzelle,' 

 Berlin, 1852, pi. v) do not exhibit correctly the relation of the cilia to the 

 body of the spermatozoid. 



