

Minnesota Plant Life, 



141 



plants might easily have originated ; and it is believed that club- 

 mosses are actually to be compared with such perennial cap- 

 sules. While it is one of the rarer Minnesota liverworts, the 

 horned variety is of peculiar interest and should be sought by 

 amateurs in all parts of the state. It is very easily recognized 

 by its peculiar habit. The only plants likely to be mistaken for 

 it are certain kinds of reindeer moss in which similar slender 

 horns are developed from a flat prostrate body. But these, 

 like all lichens, can be easily distinguished by the gray or blue 

 tint which is given to the plant by the fungus element. Be- 

 sides, the erect horn-like bodies of the reindeer mosses do not 

 split and are of course not capsules at all but erect portions of 

 a fruit-body bearing little propagative granules over their sur- 

 face or giving rise to superficial discs made up of sacs and sterile 

 threads. 



Leafy liverworts and their allies. The higher division of liver- 

 worts is represented in Minnesota by a considerable number of 

 species. Some of them are very much like the lower forms in the 

 habit of the vegetative body, while others are more moss-like, 

 consisting of branched, prostrate leafy stems. These higher liver- 

 worts are divided into two series, those in which the plant-body 

 is flat and leafless constituting one division and those in which 

 a leafy stem is maintained constituting the other. All agree, 

 however, in the general character of the capsular plant, and this, 

 when it matures, stands erect upon the surface or at the tip of 

 some branch of the vegetative plant. It is provided with a 

 slender stalk which is usually of a translucent green tint, dif- 

 ferent in appearance from the brown or red stalks of most moss 

 capsular plants. At the end of the pale green stalk is produced 

 a black spherical capsule which, when ripe, generally splits from 

 the tip, making four flaps that turn back to permit the escape 

 of the spores and elater-cells. Plants classified as higher liver- 

 worts are often found upon the bark of trees or upon moist soil. 

 \Yhen growing upon the smooth bark of the birch they make 

 delicate green traceries, in their general appearance reminding 

 one slightly of the sea-weeds. They do not form little tufts as 

 mosses would in such positions but remain so tightly pressed 

 to the surface upon which they grow 7 that it is difficult to re- 



