212 TASMANIAN HEPATIC^. 



erect, tubular, or inflated sheath. It is sometimes compressed, 

 and is frequently angled or keeled. The mouth of the perianth 

 may be contracted, dilated, entire, or lobed, these distinctions 

 being, in many cases, specific characters. Within the perianth 

 the transparent oblong or globose calyptra will be seen if the 

 fruiting is sufficiently advanced, and here, at the base of the 

 fruitstalk, it remains, not ascending with the capsule as in 

 mosses; of all the fruiting organs in Hepatic^ this alone is 

 never absent. As the capsule ripens it bursts the calyptra, 

 and is carried through it and upwards as a small blackish ball 

 at the tip of the pellucid stem, and, when ripe, it bursts, in 

 most species, into four valves (PI. v.) ; the capsule then 

 appears as a small brown cross. The capsule contains 

 innumerable spores, mixed up with long spiral threads called 

 elaters ; when the capsule bursts these elaters twist about and 

 throw the spores to some distance. Elaters are never found in 

 the fruit of mosses. 



The female inflorescence or archegonia consist of minute and 

 slender flagon-shaped bodies with long tubular necks ; within 

 each there is one solitary loose cell. One of these becoming 

 fertilised, it eventually ripens into the calyptra above 

 described, the loose cell becoming the capsule (PI. xi., f. 1, 2.) 



The male inflorescence or antheridia are very minute pedi- 

 celled sacs on the same or on different plants from those 

 containing the archegonia. They are usually solitary on the 

 axils of modified (perigonial) leaves, which sometimes occupy 

 proper branchlets (PI. xi., f. 3, 4). The fruit of the Fron- 

 DOSE Hepaticce is somewhat different. In the Marchantia, 

 for instance, the involucre, perianth, and capsule are contained 

 on the surface of a green or brownish-stalked receptacle 

 (PI. ii., f. 6). These will be familiar to most persons as small 

 green-stalked knobs, growing from leafy expansions on wet 

 rocks or stumps. The gemmoe contained in the fringed recep- 

 tacles found on these frondose expansions, and before alluded 

 to, are themselves reproductive. 



