HEPATICiE. 285 



Ilecej)tacle or Footstalk. — In no part of tlieir structure is 

 there a greater dissimilarity between the Mosses and Liver- 

 worts. ^Vmong the former, we found it a hard, firm, dark- 

 coloured body, indicating more than any other part a con- 

 nection with higher forms of vegetation ; while in the latter 

 the reverse is the case, as it consists of a mass of lax, elon- 

 gated, cellular tissue, greenish, or, when fully developed, of 

 pellucid whiteness, reminding one of the delicate stalks of 

 minute Fungi, or " moulds." Some are so fugacious as to 

 permit, in close damp weather, only of ten or twelve hours' 

 duration between their bursting from the integuments of the 

 calyptra and their final decay. This frail and evanescent 

 character renders it difficult to meet with any but the fruit 

 of the commonest species, or those where capsules are per- 

 manent or nearly sessile ; and to the collector it is very tan- 

 talizing to meet sometimes, in his Spring walks, the green 

 fronds of interesting species, covered with the decayed 

 remains of capsules and stidks, which, if collected a few 

 hours previously, would have afforded elegant objects for 

 the herbarium. 



Capsule. — This also, with the exception of Anclreaa, Plate 

 III., varies considerably from the spore-case of Mosses. 

 TThen examined soon after escaping from the calyptra, it 



