THE BRYOPHYTES OF CONNECTICUT 
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE BRYO" 
PHYTES 
The Bryophytes represent a very clearly defined Class in 
the Vegetable Kingdom, occupying a position just below the 
Pteridophytes, which include the Ferns and their allies. They 
comprise the plants which are properly known as Mosses and 
Liverworts. They must not be confused, however, with Algz 
and Lichens, both of which are sometimes called mosses, 
although simpler and less definite in organization, nor yet 
with the more highly developed Club Mosses, which belong 
to the Pteridophytes. The group is characterized by a clearly 
defined alternation of generations and by complex sexual 
organs, both antheridia and archegonia being multicellular, and 
showing a differentiation into sterile and fertile cells. 
The gametophyte, or sexual individual, is a green plant, 
capable of absorption from the outside and therefore able to 
lead an independent life. It constitutes the plant-body of the 
Moss or Liverwort as ordinarily understood, and is usually 
much larger and more conspicuous than the sporophyte, or 
asexual individual. It consists of a dorsi-ventral thallus, 
usually closely appressed to the substratum, or else of a leafy 
shoot, the leaves being always destitute of stalks, and usually 
but a single cell thick throughout the greater part of their 
extent. Whatever its form the gametophyte exhibits.an apical 
growth, frequently dying at one end while it advances at the 
other. It develops no true root, as do the higher plants, but 
clings to the substratum by means of filamentous organs called 
rhizoids, which often play no part in the process of absorption. 
The antheridia and archegonia are borne on the gametophyte ; 
in monoicous species they arise on the same plant; in dioicous 
species, on different plants. The antheridium consists of a 
spheroidal or ovoid sac, sometimes stalkless and sometimes 
