136 PLANT-LTFE 



fertilization, the cells terminating the neck draw apart, 

 and open a way for the swimming spermatozoids 

 liberated from a male shoot. The canal is oiled, as one 

 might say, and the passage made smooth for the male 

 elements by mucilage formed from broken-up canal 

 cells, and sugar, a constituent of the mucilage, is used as 

 a bait, which readily attracts the swarming spermato- 

 zoids. Water is essential as a medium for the fertilizing 

 operation; a drop of rain is sufficient to carry the male 

 elements from the discharging antheridia, and deposit 

 them in easy reach of the archegonia. 



What has so far been said in regard to Funaria con- 

 cerns the sexual generation i.e., the gametophyte; 

 this, we gather, includes the whole leafy plant, with its 

 sexual organs and rhizoids. The asexual generation, or 

 sporophyte, rises from the fertilized ovum, and is repre- 

 sented by the fruit, or sporogonium. The development 

 of the sporophyte is to some extent shown in Plate IV., 

 Fig. 16, where n is the embryo resulting from the ferti- 

 lized ovum, p is the foot by which the sporophyte is 

 attached to the gametophyte, and o is the calyptra 

 (Gr., a veil) which is formed from the wall of the arche- 

 gonium. This veil is ultimately ruptured by the 

 growing fruit, and carried aloft on the stalked capsule 

 on which it remains for some time as a protective sheath. 

 The final stage is seen in Figs. 12, 13, and 14, of the 

 plate already referred to, where e is the capsule con- 

 taining spores, / is the capsule lid, or operculum, which 

 is thrown off when the spores are ripe, and g is the theca, 

 or head, supported on a stalk, or seta. The capsule, 

 before throwing off the calyptra, is seen at h, and in 

 Fig. 14 we have a capsule, minus calyptra and oper- 



