SPECIAL MORPHOLOGY : MOSSES. 



177 



(into which their forms, however, gradually merge) (fig. 131.). The adher- 

 ing fibres are also at times developed from the leaf-cells, as, for instance, 

 in Calymperes, Syrrhopodon, &c., and are regarded here as parasitical 

 Conferva ; a view that is evidently devoid of reason, since the immediate 

 development of individual leaf-cells into filiform cells is generally the 

 first beginning of their formation. 



There are many examples in this group of separate cells of the stem 

 (Mnium androgynum\ as well as of the leaves (Syrrhopodon prolifer\ 

 severing themselves from the connection of individuality of the whole 

 plant, and introducing an independent process of cell-formation, from 

 which a little cellular body proceeds, emancipates itself from the plant 

 and develops into a new cell. These have been named proliferous buds 

 (gemmae proliferce, bulbilli). They are neither buds nor bulbs, if we 

 connect definite conceptions with these words, and not something defined 

 in opposition to all laws of the formation of ideas, as " A bud is that body 

 from which a new plant may proceed, and which is neither a spore nor 

 seed." Investigations on the development of these cells are, however, 

 still incomplete ; we are indebted to Meyen* (Mnium androgynum) for the 

 best we possess, and from his statements it appears certain that a single 

 cell of the extremity of the stem becomes the base of the new 

 individual. 



102. A. Sometimes terminal, sometimes lateral, closed buds, 

 composed of many, most frequently narrower and differently 

 formed leaves, and many somewhat irregular adhering fibres (sap- 

 filaments, paraphyses) which often occur in the interior of the bud, 

 may, as the special coverings of certain organs, destined to develop 

 themselves into the sporocarp, be comprised under the term of 

 blossoms (flores). 



It appears to me, in a twofold point of view, to be purely sporting with 

 the subject to regard the blossoms of Mosses as essentially monosexual, and 

 naturally collected into an inflorescence, merely for the sake of dividing, 

 without any reason whatever (but purely in accord- 

 ance with wholly arbitrary and inapplicable analo- 

 gies with the higher plants), that which nature 

 exhibits to us as a wholly independent structure, in 

 order ingeniously to put it together again. In our 

 present knowledge of the blossoms of the Mosses, 

 there is at any rate no indication that any definite 

 parts within it are more closely combined by nature, 

 and, consequently, nothing that can give probability 

 to the view of the composition of the whole blossom 

 from separate florets. Here, as everywhere else, I 

 strictly abide by that which nature actually yields. 

 Secondly, the opinion that all the blossoms of 

 Mosses are essentially of one sex is untenable, be- 

 cause, at the present time at least, there can be 

 nothing said of sex with reference to Mosses ; not- 

 withstanding that the pistillidia and the antheridia 

 may be situated upon different plants, as, for in- 

 stance, in Funaria hygromctrica (fig. 133. ), it 



* Meyen, Wiegmann's Archiv, Jahrg. iii. vol. i. p. 424. 1837. 



133 Funaria hyqrometrica : two young plants, n, With the sporocarp (still enclosed 

 by the calyptra (c), and very young) in the act of development, and b bearing anthers. 



N 



