CRYPTOGAMOUS PLANTS. 245 



J. Hookeri; it is found double in /. Lyellii and /. Hi- 

 bernica. Each calyx incloses from three to four, or ten 

 linear pistils, very like those of Mosses, and covered in 

 the same manner with a calyptra, which differs from that 

 of Mosses in its being broken at the apex ; consequently 

 it is not raised with the fruit, and it forms a kind of 

 membranous cup at the base of the peduncle, which, as 

 in Mosses, is but little if at all visible at flowering, and 

 elongates much and very rapidly at the approach of ma- 

 turity ; this peduncle is almost always of a whitish 

 colour, delicate texture, and formed of very elongated 

 cellules ; the theca or capsule is globular, brown, always 

 devoid of an operculum, and opens at maturity by four 

 spreading valves; it contains a great number of seeds 

 attached to filaments or linear lamellae, elastic, very hy- 

 groscopic, rolled up as a snail-shell, and most frequently 

 of a brown colour : they are called Elaters ; they 

 appear intended for the dispersion of the seeds, which 

 are spherical, brown, and opaque. Hedwig has seen 

 those of Jungermannia epiphylla shoot out, at germi- 

 nation, a simple radicle, and dilate at their upper part 

 into a leaf. 



Besides these seeds, they have likewise almost every 

 kind of gemmae or bulbs which serve to reproduce them : 

 it also appears that the bodies collected into a compact 

 head, at the top of the leaves of some species, as Jun- 

 germannia nemorosa, and which Hedwig considered to 

 be male flowers, are nothing but collections of bulbs. 



Marchantia does not differ from Jungermannia as 

 regards its fructification, except in the following circum- 

 stances: — 1st. The anthers, though resembling in form 

 those of Jungermannia, are collected together, and, as it 

 were, regularly inserted into an orbicular disc, nearly 

 flat, slightly wavy, and borne upon a long peduncle. 

 2d. The female flowers, organized as those of the Jun- 



