20 THE SPHAGNACE OR PEAT-MOSSES OF 
CHAPTER IV. 
THE REPRODUCTIVE SYSTEM. 
Tue organs necessary for impregnation and subsequent fruit for- 
mation are of two kinds, antheridia—male, and archegonia or 
pistillidia—female ; they differ, however, from those of the frondose 
mosses, and are arranged in a different manner. These two organs 
have never been found together in one inflorescence (synoicous), 
as is so frequently the case in mosses, but they occur separately on 
lateral shoots either of the capitulum or of some of the fascicles 
below it, and they may both be produced on one stem, or the 
different organs are on separate plants ; thus all Sp/agua are either 
monoicous or dioicous. 
Tue ANTHERIDIA. 
These are arranged in slender catkins or amentula, somewhat 
resembling those found in the Fungermanniacee, and occupy the 
apical part of a certain number of the divergent branches, or by a 
continued growth of the branch beyond the male inflorescence, the 
latter not unfrequently appears confined to the centre of the 
branch. 
Each antheridium is attached to the branch singly at the end 
of the insertion of its covering bract, to which it stands in the 
same relation as the branch fascicles do to the stem leaves. 
The antheridium originates in a cell derived from the outer 
indurated stratum of the branch; this cell divides by a transverse 
septum into two, the lower one becoming the slender pedicel, the 
upper the globose body containing the antherozoids; the wall of 
the antheridium consists of a single stratum of large, angular, clear 
cells. The pedicel is long and of extreme tenuity, the sac globose 
or ovate, and pale green, appearing as if encircled by a hyaline 
ring; this, however, is not the case, although Hedwig and some 
recent bryologists have regarded it as such, and compared it to the 
jointed annulus of the Ferns, but the appearance is due to the large 
cells being so transparent that they are only seen distinctly when 
