76 FIRST FORMS OF VEGETATION. 
half-an-inch to an inch wide, and are variously 
divided into obtuse lobes. Their texture is 
membranaceous and strikingly cellular. Their 
upper surface is most beautifully reticulated and 
covered with numerous minute lozenge-like scales, 
with a little dot-like pore or puncture in the 
centre, analogous to the stomates or breathing- 
pores of flowering plants. The fructification is 
very singular, resembling a forest of little mush- 
rooms rising from the leaves ; each dividing at the 
top into eight or ten green rays, and having as 
many little brown purses placed alternately 
between them. Each of these purses has a valve 
which opens generally in July, and contains 
within it four or five florets, from the centre of 
which rises a single funnel-shaped filament, 
covered with a yellow powder affixed to the 
elaters or elastic spiral hairs previously alluded to, 
exhibiting highly developed spiral bands. Besides 
this ordinary male and female stalked receptacle, 
sterile as well as fertile individuals are provided 
at all seasons of the year with cup-like bodies, 
growing on various parts of the upper surface of 
the frond, and of the same texture as the frond 
itself. These bodies seem to indicate an approach 
to the calyx and corolla of the flowering plants. 
They contain in their interior several lentil-shaped 
membranaceous bodies of a reticulated structure, 
