180 BOTANY. 



the under surface. Among these roots may be found cer- 

 tain bodies, analogous to the stamens and pistils of flowers, 

 and called the antheridia and pistillidia. It is not until 

 these bodies have matured and done their work that the 

 young fern appears. If there is anything like 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 devel- 

 oped, at /. 



EXERCISE LXXIV. 

 Mosses. 



In place of flowers, mosses have antheridia and pistil- 

 lidia. These plants may be either monoecious or dioe- 

 cious. Fig. 476 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 , where you may observe the peculiar 

 cylindrical bodies growing among the leaves. These are 

 antheridia. One of these bodies, detached and much mag- 

 nified, is seen at c. The stalk-like bodies accompanying 

 the antheridia (h) are called paraphyses. They are not 

 well understood, but are thought to be abortive states 

 of the antheridia. At first these little organs contain mu- 

 cilage, but, when mature, their contents, seen escaping at 

 c, are granular, and each of the little ejected cellules sets 

 free an active antherozoid. Sometimes the leaves that sur- 

 round the antheridia grow together into a kind of cap 

 called a perigone, and in monoecious mosses, the antheridia 

 and pistillidia are often found within the same perigone. 



The archegone or pistillidia of mosses also arise in clus- 

 ters of leaves, and are cell-like bodies, having a cap or 

 epigone of the same nature as the perigone of antheridia. 

 But the pistillidia bursts its cap, leaving part of it as a 

 sheath below, and is carried up on a stalk (</), at the top 



