Minnesota Plant Life. 



If mosses proceeded no farther in their development than 

 the first-stage, they would be regarded as algae; but there is 

 the capacity in all of them to develop branches upon the first- 

 stage, arising from little buds of cells. The branch which thus 

 arises quickly takes the form of the mature moss or liverwort 

 and is known as the second-stage, or mature stage of the sexual 

 plant. Sometimes this mature stage is 

 itself a flattened body as in those broad, 

 forked, green plates which are found so 

 commonly on the damp sides of ravines. 

 More often the second-stage takes the 

 form of a stem upon which are borne 

 leaves. In liverworts 

 this stem is almost in- 

 variably quite pros- 

 trate, bearing two rows 

 of leaves, right and left, 

 and a third row of 

 scales on the under 

 side. Liverworts of 

 this sort are therefore 

 called, in common par- 

 lance, scale-mosses. 



In the moss division 

 of the general group 

 there are no forms in 

 which the second-stage 

 is a flat forking plate of 

 tissue, but without ex- 

 ception the plant-body FIG. 39. A male moss FIG. 40. A female moss plant. 



consists of a leafy stem, plant The , sp T n ' The ***-*J& are inclos f d 



* anes are produced in in the tuft of leaves at the 



Sometimes Unbraiiched, clusters at the end of tip of the stem. After At- 



., . the stem. After At- kinson. 



while in other varieties kinson. 



it may be branched in 



a definite manner, often with some of the branches subordinated 



to others, building up a fern-like or tree-like branch-system. 



Very often this leaf-bearing branch-system in mosses stands 



more or less erect and then the leaves are generally arranged 



around the stems in spirals quite as in higher plants. In one 



