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THE SPHAGNA CE^ OR PEAT-MOSSES OP 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE REPRODUCTIVE SYSTEM. 



The organs necessary for impregnation and subsequent fruit for- 

 mation are of two kinds, antheridia — male, and archegonia or 

 pistillidia — female ; they differ, however, from those of the frondose 

 mosses, and are arranged in a different manner. These two organs 

 have never been found together in one inflorescence (synoicous), 

 as is so frequently the case in mosses, but they occur separately on 

 lateral shoots either of the capitulum or of some of the fascicles 

 below it, and they may both be produced on one stem, or the 

 different organs are on separate plants ; thus all SpJiagna are either 

 monoicous or dioicous. 



The Antheridia. 



These are arranged in slender catkins or amentula, somewhat 

 resembling those found in the yungermanniacea, and occupy the 

 apical part of a certain number of the divergent branches, or by a 

 continued growth of the branch beyond the male inflorescence, the 

 latter not unfrequently appears confined to the centre of the 

 branch. 



Each antheridium is attached to the branch singly at the end 

 of the insertion of its covering bract, to which it stands in the 

 same relation as the branch fascicles do to the stem leaves. 



The antheridium originates in a cell derived from the outer 

 indurated stratum of the branch ; this cell divides by a transverse 

 septum into two, the lower one becoming the slender pedicel, the 

 upper the globose body containing the antherozoids ; the wall of 

 the antheridium consists of a single stratum of large, angular, clear 

 cells. The pedicel is long and of extreme tenuity, the sac globose 

 or ovate, and pale green, appearing as if encircled by a hyaline 

 ring ; this, however, is not the case, although Hedwig and some 

 recent bryologists have regarded it as such, and compared it to the 

 jointed annulus of the Ferns, but the appearance is due to the large 

 cells being so transparent that they are only seen distinctly when 



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