LIVERWORTS 121 



present; any one who desires to know more on 

 the subject will find it treated in great detail 

 in Hoffmeister's masterly work on the Higher 

 Cryptogamia, translated and published many 

 years ago by the Bay Society, as also in Dr. D. H. 

 Campbell's book on " The Structure and Develop- 

 ment of the Mosses and Eerns." Here, however, 

 I must content myself with saying that slowly, 

 but surely, the young plant is evolved, and even- 

 tually attains to one of the many forms with 

 which we are familiar, the process in some cases 

 taking a considerable time to complete, though in 

 others the rate of progress is much more rapid. 

 I pass on, therefore, to speak of the flowering part 

 of the plant, or 



Inflorescence, the seat of the reproductive organs, 

 from which the future fruit will spring. While 

 this stage of liverwort-growth corresponds, in 

 many respects, to the similar one in a moss's 

 development, there are, nevertheless, certain very 

 pronounced differences in detail between the 

 methods pursued by the two tribes. I have 

 only space for a reference to some of the more 

 important of these. 



As in a moss, so with a liverwort, the organs 

 of reproduction are of two kinds, the fertilising 

 organ, and the fruit-bearing organ, each of which 

 calls for a few words of description. 



The Fertilising Organs (antheridia) are formed 

 in varying positions on the plant, according to 



