428 [Proc. B.N.F.C., 



15 February, 1898. 



MOSSES AND LIVERWORTS. 



By Rev. C. H. Waddell, b.d. 



When the winter season comes, and flowers wither, and 

 leaves fail, and the larger plants take their winter rest, Nature 

 does not cease her operations but brings the Cryptogams upon 

 the scene, a humbler race of organisms, mosses, lichens, and 

 algae. These flourish during the damp and cool season, and 

 contribute much by their soberer but wonderfully varied and 

 beautiful tints to the beauty of the winter landscape. Mosses, 

 as a rule, fruit at this season, and Bryology has this advantage 

 over the more popular study of flowering plants that it can be 

 pursued during all seasons of the year. Mosses are also more 

 easily preserved, and keep their colour better when dried than 

 any other group of plants. The lecturer then gave an account 

 of the life history of a moss, from the spore to the full grown 

 plant. The flowers are as a rule small, and to be searched for 

 with a pocket lens situated on the sides or ends of the stems, 

 but in some species such as Polytrichum they are conspicuous 

 objects forming little red caps on the tips of the stems. The 

 moss flower does not produce seed or fruit, but when fertilised 

 produces a new plant, from which is developed the seta, bearing 

 on its top the capsule containing spores. This is called in 

 popular language the fruit. 



The alternation of generations, as it is called, forms a sharp 

 mark of distinction between these and higher plants. 



The dispersal of the spores is regulated by a beautiful con- 

 trivance called the peristome, a door consisting of a closely 

 fitting fringe of teeth which opens or closes automatically 

 according to the dryness or humidity of the atmosphere. No 

 two peristomes are formed on the same pattern, and a variety 

 of beautiful forms of these was thrown upon the screen. In 

 this and other particulars mosses exhibited a marvellous variety 

 of contrivance and adaptations in their structures, traces of the 



