LIVERWORTS 133 



bearing the family name of Andre&a, which as a 

 rule inhabit the higher mountains. While from 

 their structure it is evident that these plants must 

 be classed with the mosses, even a slight acquain- 

 tance with them cannot fail to draw attention to 

 certain features in which, outwardly at least, they 

 approximate very closely to the liverworts. Look, 

 for instance, at Plate VI. fig. 3, which gives the 

 ripe but closed capsule of one of them, and notice, 

 by comparing it with Plate IX. fig. 12, how 

 forcibly it reminds one of a liverwort capsule at 

 the same stage. Then, too, the fruit-stalk in my 

 drawing is much more like that of a liverwort 

 than a moss, a fact which is still more observable 

 when it is seen in the microscope. But when we 

 learn the manner in which, in these particular 

 mosses, the ripe spores are discharged from the 

 capsule, we cannot, I think, fail to be struck by 

 the likeness to a liverwort, which is here so un- 

 mistakable ; for in this one family, the capsule, 

 instead of adopting one or other of the methods 

 for the discharge of the spores described at pages 

 61 to 63, opens, as we have already learned (see 

 page 64), by means of four slits or cracks in its 

 sides, though these do not extend, as in the liver- 

 worts, quite to the top of the capsule. Plate VI. 

 fig. 4 is a drawing of a capsule of the Alpine 

 Andreaea (Andre cea alpina) when dry, and shows 

 the slits in the capsule wall gaping widely open 

 (see also Plate IV.b, figs. 12 and 13). It will be 



