138 MOSSES AND LIVERWORTS 



them, are very beautiful as seen in the microscope, 

 especially when, as sometimes happens, their 

 margins are cut into sharply pointed teeth. One 

 of them is figured at Plate IX. fig. 18; it is 

 taken from the Common Liverwort (Marchantia 

 polymorpha) , to which I have already referred 

 (see p. 122). Most of the buds had already 

 fallen out when my drawing was made, but a 

 few still remain inside, and are shown scattered 

 on the bottom, while three of them, on a larger 

 scale, are given at fig. 19. 



We have now completed the life-story of the 

 liverwort tribe, so far, that is, as it can be told 

 in an introductory sketch such as the present; 

 but before finally parting company with these 

 fascinating little plants it will not be inappropriate 

 to say something, a little more in detail, with 

 regard to their 



Leaves. The shapes of the leaves of the leafy 

 liverworts are very distinctive, not to say peculiar, 

 and differ in a marked degree from the general 

 form of moss leaves ; how great this difference 

 is, a glance at Plates VII. and X. at once 

 shows. The leaves of mosses, as will be seen 

 from the first-mentioned plate, generally follow in 

 miniature the forms of ordinary leaves much more 

 closely than do those of the liverworts. In the 

 latter plants we frequently meet with more or 

 less rounded or toothed types; these are very 



