84 WONDERS OF ORGANIC LIFE. 



either naked or covered with a membranous 

 envelope. In Lycopodium the fructification is 

 axillary. In the Hepaticm, or liverworts, the 

 herbage is frondose, and the fructification ori- 

 ginates from what is at the same time both 

 leaf and stem. The seeds are contained in 

 capsules. In the Algce, the herbage is frondose, 

 and generally of a leathery or gelatinous tex- 

 ture. There are no flowers, but the seeds are 

 imbedded either in the frond itself or in some 

 peculiar receptacle. In many of the marine 

 algce, the seeds are lodged either in external 

 capsules, tubercles, or vesicles, or in the joints 

 of the frond. The submerged algce are in 

 general merely fixed by the roots, their nou- 

 rishment being imbibed by the surface, and 

 many of them float without being attached to 

 anything. Herein we are reminded of those 

 frondescent corallines, the roots of which are 

 merely fibres of attachment. The alga? are 

 either jointless, as Fucus vesiculosus, a common 

 seaweed on our coasts, and the laver, ( Ulva,) 

 esteemed for the table ; or jointed, as the Con- 

 ferva; ; or disjointed, as Diatoma, Fragillaria, etc. 

 When the jointless algce fructify, the fronds 

 either develope little cellules, in which the re- 

 productive grains are inclosed ; or some part 

 of their cells changes its appearance, acquires 

 a deeper colour, and finally drops to pieces ; or 

 the whole mass of each individual, at a certain 

 stage of existence, appears to separate spon- 

 taneously into particles, each destined to be- 

 come developed into a distinct plant. 



