SECT. II. REPRODUCTIVE ORGANS. 2 1 gf 



SUBSECTION I. 



Barren Flowers. The barren flowers of the Mosses Stars or 

 are the stars (PL VII. Fig. 8.) or disks, and buds, 

 described in the former chapter, as frequently ter- 

 minating the branches, or sitting in the bosom of 

 the leaves, and as being sometimes also proliferous. 

 If they are taken and dissected with care and under 

 a good magnifier, they will be found to consist of 

 an assemblage of leaves or scales resembling the 

 other leaves of the plant in form, but generally 

 larger or more elegant, and sometimes also coloured, 

 though never terminating in a hair. These Hed- 

 wig regards, though upon grounds somewhat ques- 

 tionable, as constituting the calyx of the barren 

 flower. 



If the leaves of this calyx are now taken and care- Succulent 

 fully stripped off in succession, the desector will find * rea ** 

 as he approaches the centre a number of small 

 thread-shaped and succulent substances closely 

 crowded together, and issuing from between the 

 leaves ; or if not so issuing, occupying the centre of 

 the disk, and distinguishable into two different sorts, 

 some consisting of an individual and transparent 

 viscus, and others of a longitudinal succession of 

 small and transparent vesicles united at the extremi- 

 ties, so as to exhibit a sort of jointed or necklace 

 appearance. Both of them may be readily detected 

 in the barren flowers of Polytrichum commune, if 



