BR! 



tins, and adds to the li-t of porous LJrnm 



don Bphagnoides, an I I.- ucobryum minus, albiduin, .am. 



Mr. Griffith I 

 and PistillidiA, regarding the former as a true male ap] 

 • :m ovule. 1 do not know that he has anywfa 

 nl this opinion; and it is difficult to comprehend upon whal 

 depends ; it may, bowi \> r, I"- presumed, that he i 

 embryos, formed in vast numbers, 'ibis admirable oh 

 favour of fecundation in some way in M — • - and Liverworts, 



ing 11 1 • of the tissue, terminating and closing what 

 the point of the pistillidium, subsequently to the applicati 

 •rhereby 1 1 1- - ityle becomes a canal, opening externally by a brow 



rifice of this canal, extending downwards until it 

 ovary, and by a corresponding enlargement of a cell (his ovul< 

 cavity. Mr. Valentine, however, does not regard thee 

 fecundation. 



An uninitiated person, reading the definition "f ;i genus of Urnn 



mat t" be the tribe in which an approach to the animal creation m 

 lakes place. Unacquainted with the exact meaning of the Latin « 

 Bryologists, he might understand by the peristomium a jaw, by tin- calyptra a in.-'. 

 and by tli>- struma a kind of goitre ; and when he saw that teeth belong 

 In' would naturally conclude that it was really a vegeto-animal of which In 

 Btruck with the evident absurdity of giving Buch nam- sto parts of plants, without at the 

 same time explaining their real nature, 1 formerly ventured t" rail ti. 

 naturalists to the subject by the following paragraph in the n i of thi i 

 eiplet of Botany. 



■■ Phe calyptra may be understood to be a convolute leaf; the operculum anothi r ; 

 tli.- pi ristomium one or more whorls oi minute flat leaves ; and the ti 

 excavated distended apex of the stalk, the cellular substance of which e in the 



form of Bporu 



Tin- reasoning upon which I conceived this hypothesis to be sustaii 

 following : — Even one agrees in describing the calyptra as a membram 

 between tin- leavi - ami the ha-.- of the young Bpore-case, and as enveloping the I 

 but having no organic connexion with it : when the stalk of the bpop 



gponding extension of the parte of the calyptra takes pi ; that it mu 

 either ruptured at its apex (as in Jungermannia i, or at the ha-- ; ami in tin- latfa • 

 it would necessarily be carried up upon the tip of the Bp which it originally 



enveloped Now, whal can he mon ible than mat such an organ, situal 



thus described, should be one of the last convolute leaves of the axis which I ■ 



terminates, bearing the sain.- relation to tin- latter as tin- convolufa I i the 



Bower of Magnolia, or, to Bpeak more precisely .-till, a.- the calyptriform 

 Bower oi Pileanthus I It the calyptra be anatomically examined, 

 genera as Tortula and Dicranum, no difference in it- tissue and that oi the 

 hi- observable; and that very common tendency to dehisce on . 

 diameter of tin- theca increases, which characterises the dimidiate calypti 



nndersl 1 to be a separation at me lint- where the margins ■■!' thi su] 



in the mitriform calyptra this separation at a given line does not tak< phi 



consequence i> an irregular laceration of its base. The analog) of the ealy] 



this nature, the nexl inference would oaturally be, that tin- part it o 



with a flower-bud. Upon this supposition, the external b 



•apposed bud would !>.■ tin- operculum; the adhesion of this < 



which would answer to the apex ol the axis, or to the tube of tin 



plants, would be analogous to what occurs in Eucalyptus, oi 



that oi Eschscholtzia. A- to the number of the parts, in a 



it is mads up. it will be observed that in the paragraph abovi 



one only. My reason for adopting thi- conclusion was tin 



division' upon 'its surface or in tin- substance ,.: itz I 



of nature between it and the calyptra when hot! 



nam genera already cited. Witii regard t-> tin- p. ristomium 



Bailed, occupy one or more whorls ; they are evidently 



brane, because they are in a constant and regular number in 



number is universally some multipl the floral 1 



ordinarily i . I, or 5 ; they have the power of c ntr 



t>y their contiguous margins, as the floral 1< 



positii n from being indexed with their points to thi 



points turned outward-, exactly as ha] p as in B 



