G0NFERV01D FILAMENTS OF MOSSES. . r >77 
will be seen a number of 'filaments crowding each other and running parallel, the 
terminal cells of which, having assumed the dark colour and globular form, produce a 
dark velvety covering to the surface upon which they grow — and thus presenting an 
appearance easily mistaken for Conferva?. 
I have hitherto in this communication shown the multiplication of the cells upon 1 
linear-binary form of growth; we now, however, come to another stage, where t he- 
segmentation proceeds upon the quaternary or its multiples; and this leads us into still 
more interesting ground. 
The first time I observed this was in some filaments which I placed in water ; and 
these, after growing some time, produced cells at various points, chiefly at their ends, 
which had not only segmented once upon the quaternary plan, but their subdivisions 
had also repeated the process. This I have shown on PL LVI1I. fig. 17. 1 D some the 
process had extended still further, and in some less regularly, so as to produce irregular 
masses of green cells, in varying degrees of the same form of segmentation (EL LV 1 1 1 . 
fig. 17 b). However, in some the contents had divided into six or more portions round 
a common centre (PI. LVIII. fig. 17 c), and the parent-cell wall, bursting, let free a group 
of cells ready again to divide. 
Guided by these facts, I pursued my investigations in the >ame direction, and found 
that the globular cells, which I have already described, separating from the ends of the 
filaments, frequently underwent quaternary subdivision, and that in them the process 
went forward to the infinite multiplication of these green cells, the result of wl 
repeated and rapid segmentation was to produce cells of exceeding minuteness, 
as I have formerly shown in a similar condition in the gonidia of Lichens, is dependent 
on the preponderance which the process of subdivision holds over individual cell-.rowth 
When the former process is in abeyance, then the latter regains the ascendency ; and 
isions. so small as scarcely to show any distinction between cell-wall 
This 
these little drv 
and contents, gradually 
cell 
in size so as at last to equal the original parent 
At 'first the contents of the cells were somewhat granular, but after a generation 
two they became homogeneous and, in every respect, could not be ousting 
be distinguished from 
the subdivisions of the Lichen-gonidmm 
And in another respect they much resembled these latter namely tn the great 
tendeney for the proce^ to keep on unvaryingly in the form m whteh ft had begum 
This ean readily Z observed by any one who will take the troub * Ljg. areas may 
thus be eoverel by the growth of ^^J% ££%££?£? 
time, certainly over a year, and probably, as far as 1 can maive , ' • 
It may always be noticed on the face of any wall where Mosses grow, that underneath 
m, this property of repeated and incessant subdivision 
, \ • i +;ui« knfnro the next can be recognized ; 
early in the cell, that one subdivision is nanny «un; F «~ * , Rejuvenescence in 
Nature' (Kay 
*L, or rather eootinne it in a new generation, till age finally is attained in a last 
goes division 
99 
4h2 
