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THE BRYOPHYTES OF CONNECTICUT 



GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE BRYO" 



PHYTES 



The Bryophytes represent a very clearly defined Class in 

 the Vegetable Kingdom, occupying a position just below the 

 Pteridophytes, which include the Ferns and their allies. They 

 comprise the plants which are properly known as Mosses and 

 Liverworts. They must not be confused, however, with Algae 

 and Lichens, both of which are sometimes called mosses, 

 although simpler and less definite in organization, nor yet 

 with the more highly developed Club Mosses, which belong 

 to the Pteridophytes. The group is characterized by a clearly 

 defined alternation of generations and by complex sexual 

 organs, both antheridia and archegonia being multicellular, and 

 showing a differentiation into sterile and fertile cells. 



The gametophyte, or sexual individual, is a green plant, 

 capable of absorption from the outside and therefore able to 

 lead an independent life. It constitutes the plant-body of the 

 Moss or Liverwort as ordinarily understood, and is usually 

 much larger and more conspicuous than the sporophyte, or 

 asexual individual. It consists of a dorsi-ventral thallus, 

 usually closely appressed to the substratum, or else of a leafy 

 shoot, the leaves being always destitute of stalks, and usually 

 but a single cell thick throughout the greater part of their 

 extent. Whatever its form the gametophyte exhibits an apical 

 growth, frequently dying at one end while it advances at the 

 other. It develops no true root, as do the higher plants, but 

 clings to the substratum by means of filamentous organs called 

 rhizoids, which often play no part in the process of absorption. 

 The antheridia and archegonia are borne on the gametophyte ; 

 in monoicous species they arise on the same plant ; in dioicous 

 species, on different plants. The antheridium consists of a 

 spheroidal or ovoid sac, sometimes stalkless and sometimes 



