FLOWEKLESS PLANTS. 189 



flowering in the history of ferns, it is the prothallus 

 produced from the spore that bears the flowers, and 

 from these produces the young fern as seen at s, and 

 the same, still more developed, at t. It would be 

 very absurd to regard the spore as seed-like when it 

 produces the flower, instead of being produced by it. 

 This matter will be more fully explained in Course 

 Second. 



EXERCISE LX. 

 Mosses. 



In place of flowers, mosses have antheridia and 

 pistillidia. These plants may be either monoecious 

 or dioecious. Fig. 353 represents a moss having its 

 antheridia and pistillidia on different plants. 



At a you notice a moss-plant with sessile leaves and 

 unbranched stem, ending in a sort of rosette, which 

 is seen in section at 5, where you may observe the 

 peculiar cylindrical bodies growing among the leaves. 

 These are antheridia. One of these bodies, detached 

 and much magnified, is seen at o. The stalk-like 

 bodies accompanying the antheridia (A) are called 

 paraphyses. They are not well understood, but 

 are thought to be abortive states of the antheridia. 

 At first these little organs contain mucilage, but, 

 when mature, their contents, seen escaping at <?, are 

 granular, and each of the little ejected cellules sets 

 free an active antherozoid. (See page 259.) Some- 

 times the leaves that surround the antheridia grow 

 together into a kind of cap called a perigone, and in 



