286 BIOLOGY. 



as they have been called, or properly seeds, and might 

 therefore, if considered alone, be compared with an 

 ovarium, but it is probably none other than the covering 

 corresponding to the perichcetium that surrounds the 

 base of the setae in mosses. The sorus is an accumula- 

 tion of seeds with pulverulent albumen contained in a 

 membranaceous covering, the indusium. 



1524. The life of the asexual plants consists simply 

 in the galvanic process. They are the primary organisms, 

 planted in air. 



1525. As being simply galvanic process, they would 

 require but little light and air ; they therefore seek the 

 darkness, like the roots, and thrive also in a corrupt 

 atmosphere, in caves, mines, cellars, and such like situa- 

 tions. They can from the same cause thrive only in 

 moisture, in water, upon marshy meadow lands, after 

 rain, copious dew, and so on. 



1526. They are devoid the process of fermentation, as 

 being that which is imparted by the oxydation of air, 

 and they therefore yield neither sugar nor acids. They 

 are simply the organized process of putrefaction ; their 

 ultimate product is therefore germinal powder, infusorial 

 matter. Their remaining secretions are alkaline bodies ; 

 to which belong the pungent, fetid, and nauseous excre- 

 tions, as the hydrogen gas and ammonia of the fungi, the 

 mucus of the luciTtBe carbonate of lime in the lichens, 

 the cell-threads of the mosses, the fetid principle of ferns. 



1527. Very few of these plants require the course of a 

 summer in order to perfect or complete the vital course ; 

 a single ray of light of one day's, aye, of one hour's dura- 

 tion, is sufficient with most of them to evoke the feeble 

 difference, to rouse the swell of the sap, and precipitate 



I the infusorial powder. 



1528. Automatiq movements, as in the leaves and 

 stamina of the higher plants, scarcely occur in them, or 

 at most in the ferns, from their possessing spiral ves- 

 sels. They divide, according to the tissues, into three 

 classes, into Cell-, Vessel-, and Trachea-plants. 



