EUROPE AND NORTH AMERICA. 23 
results, whose outer coat consists of two cell layers, beneath which 
lies another series of three strata, the central of these consisting of 
rather larger cells become parent cells of spores, while the stratum 
on each side of it represents the inner and outer wall of the future 
spore sac. The mother cells of the spores are globular, and their 
contents divide transversely by cross walls into four pyramidal 
spores ; or each of these again divides into four to form the rarer 
microspores. : 
THE PERFECT FRuir. 
The capsule is normally placed in the capitulum, but it fre- 
quently happens that a rapid extension of the internodes takes 
place, and thus the fruits are left behind at various heights on the 
stem ; this usually happens by some change in the local conditions, 
as, for instance, a sudden submergence of the plants by a wet 
season. 
As the fruit receptacle elongates to a pseudopodium it draws 
apart also the perichetial bracts, which are larger than the leaves 
and surround it at the base, and to a greater or less extent above 
it, according to its rapidity or slowness of growth. 
The Sphagnua were by all the early bryologists described as 
being without a vaginula, and Bridel formed them into a separate 
section termed Lvaginulat:, but Professor Schimper indicates as 
the vaginula the turbinate swelling below the capsule, which 
is the dilated apex of the receptacle. In the Acta Soc. Scient. 
Fennice, x. p. 264, Professor Lindberg points out that the 
pseudopodium which carries the fruit differs from a branch in 
having the same number of cuticular cell strata as the stem, 
though not so well developed, and that this organ is truly nothing 
else but an elongated vaginula. Up to the maturity of the capsule 
it remains enclosed in the perichztium, the receptacle then elon- 
gates and elevates the capsule, which is inserted by its bulbiform 
pedicel in the expanded apex. 
The calyptra is the continuation upward of the outer cell layer 
of the vaginula and fruit receptacle, and is very thin and colourless ; 
it encloses the young capsule like a sac closely stretched over it, 
and does not separate in any determinate way as in mosses, but is 
ruptured irregularly by the enlargement of the capsule and splits 
into shreds, a portion being generally left attached to the base of 
the capsule. 
The capsule is very uniform in all the species, being almost 
