364 ON TWO REMARKABLE 



same colour. Whether the capsule is really sessile. 

 or whether it rests on a short and thick pedicell, as 

 would appear fig. 1. at e, I have been unable to as- 

 certain with certainty. I suspect the apparent pedi- 

 cell is but the base of the calyx, considerably thick- 

 ened in substance, as it is altogether of the same con- 

 sistence. 



The Sporangia, or seed vessels, as I am obliged 

 to consider the rounded grains contained in the cap- 

 sule, when separately submitted to the most power- 

 ful lens, present a very remarkable formation. la 

 general they have a roundish lenticular shape, cu- 

 riously, however, four times impressed above, as if 

 they consisted of four loculae. The sporangium may. 

 on this account, be not improperly termed quadricoc- 

 cum, a term applied by Weber to the capsule, possi- 

 bly only by want of accuracy in his expression. But 

 these apparent four divisions appear to me only su- 

 perficial. The superficies of each sporangium ap- 

 pears granulated by an infinity of small, spbaericah 

 yellow, semitransparent grains, which seem to fill the 

 sporangium, and are considered by me as the real 

 sporae ; besides it is muricately exasperated by a kind 

 of hairy protuberance. Though the sporae just men- 

 tioned are far too minute to admit of a separate sub- 

 jection to the microscope, I have no doubt that they 

 are merely aggregated in the membrane, which forms 

 the sporangium, without any essential connexion by 

 a thread, fyc. among themselves. 



When I first found and began to study this hepa- 

 tic, in December, the calyces were fully formed and 



