naeus. 



MOSSES. CHAP. II 



sometimes produced on the same and sometimes on 

 a different plant ; yet he still unhappily mistakes the 

 former for the latter, and, by consequence, the latter 

 for the former, without having thrown any new 

 light on thi- most important part of the history of 

 Mosses, for which he was indeed so peculiarly well 

 quaiitied. 



And Lin- Linnaeus, whose original ideas on the fructifica- 

 tion of the Mosses seem to have been correct,* by 

 adopting as the ultimate result of his investigations 

 the opinions, and consequently the errors, of Dil- 

 lenius, left the subject involved in the same ob- 

 scurity in which he found it ; and by giving to error 

 the sanction of his great name and authority, be- 

 came, unfortunately, the occasion of misleading 

 future inquirers, rather than of conducting them to 

 the truth. 



The elucidation of this obscure subject was after- 

 wards undertaken by several contemporary or suc- 

 ceeding botanists, without much success; particu- 

 larly by Hill in his History of Plants, in which he 

 controverts the opinions of Dillenius and Linnaeus on 

 the subject of the fructification of the Mosses, and 

 shows them to be erroneous ; proving the capsula 

 of the former and the anthera of the latter, both 

 terms indicating the same idea, to be a real seed- 

 vessel, by means of the experiment of sowing the 

 powdery substance contained in it, and obtaining 

 as the result a crop of young Mosses.-}- 

 * Smith's Introd. p. 490. t History of Plants, chap, xliv, 



