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iJRAlTinVAlTE ; THE STUDV OF MOSSES. 



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ihe sexual organs are called bracts ; wlien the male and female 

 elements arc united in one inflorescence, it is termed synoicous; 

 when separate, and on the same plant, autoicous ; and when on 

 different plants, dioicous. _ The male inflorescence may be 

 gemmiform, or like a little bud in the axil of a leaf or branch, 

 or when terminal it may be capitate or discoid, the latter well 

 seen in the connnon Folytrichujn pilifcrinii of our moors, con- 

 spicuous by the crimson colour ol the bracts. The male oraans 

 or antheridia are sausage-shaped, and usually accompanied by 

 jointed filaments called paraphyses, and, at maturity the 

 antheridium bursts at the apex and gives exit to the fertilizing 

 element the antherozoids, minute spirally coiled clavate threads, 

 each having two long vibratile cilia at the small end. 



The female organs or archegonia are flask-shaped, tapering 

 upwards into a long style, and the lower part is occupied by a 

 large cell— the oospherc— corresponding to the ovary of higher 

 plants. 



When mature, the cells in the axis of the style become 

 dissolved, and the apical cells rupture and roll back, the active 

 antherozoids enter the canal and pass down to the oosphere, which 

 they enter and then disappear, the contents are fertilized, and 

 the oosphere becomes an oospore, and at once commences active 

 growth by cell-division, the lower end pushes down into the 

 tissue beneath the archegone, and the upper elongates into a 

 pedicel, bearing at its apex the young sporogone or capsule 

 covered by the calyptra, for as the ventral portion of the arche- 

 gone enlarges it ruptures near the base, the lower part forming 

 the vaginula or little sheath enclosing the base of the fruit-stalk 



