86 MOSSES AND LIVERWORTS 



Nature is by no means bound by hard-and-fast 

 lines such as these, and very often takes an 

 extremely short cut to attain her ends; indeed, 

 in no other part of the vegetable kingdom does 

 she evince so many resources in this matter of 

 reproduction, as she does in this particular corner 

 of it. I can only give a glance at a few of what 

 we may call her special methods of procedure. 



Many mosses seldom produce fruit, and yet 

 nourish and multiply abundantly. For instance, 

 the so-called Frizzled Bristle-moss (TJlota phyl- 

 lantha), which grows in dense cushions on trees 

 and rocks, generally in the neighbourhood of the 

 sea, has a world-wide distribution ; but, though it 

 is thus so well known, its fruit has very rarely 

 been seen in any part of the world. Other plants 

 could be named to which the same remarks would 

 apply with almost equal force. Now, in all 

 these cases it is pretty clear that some method 

 of increase must be adopted, or otherwise the 

 plants in question, instead of being widespread 

 and plentiful, would ere this have become extinct. 

 There are several ways in which mosses reproduce 

 their kind without the assistance of spores. The 

 most familiar of these consists of the formation 

 on the plant of small bud-like bodies, or gemmae, 

 as they are called ; these occupy different positions 

 in different species. For instance, when speaking 

 (p. 70) of that pretty filmy green moss, the 

 Pellucid Four-tooth Moss (Tetraphis pellucida), 



