116 



MANUAL OF BOTANY 



to develop. There is no special perichaetium produced as in the 

 liverworts. 



Among the sexual organs are developed hairs of peculiar 



form known as paraphyses. 

 Fig. 875. 



These are multicellular, and often 

 terminate in a globular head. 

 They are singular in that their 

 cells often contain chloroplastids. 

 The antheridia differ but little 

 from those of the Hepaticse ; they 

 are club-shaped or rounded bodies, 

 mounted on short stalks, and con- 

 sist of a wall surrounding a cavity 

 in winch are the antherozoids. 

 They open in the mosses by spUt- 

 ting across the apex. The mother 

 cells of the antherozoids escape 

 before emitting the antherozoids. 

 They are attached to each other 

 by a sort of intercellular mucUago 

 derived from the cell-walls. This, 

 however, dissolves as soon as it 

 comes into contact with water. 



The archegonia have the same 

 general structure as those in the 

 preceding group (fig. 875). There 

 is a body or venter, and a long 

 generally twisted neck. The body 

 or venter is usually thicker than in 

 the liverworts, and consists of two 

 layers of cells. It contains, as in 

 other cases, an oosphere, while the 

 neck is filled with mucilage derived 

 from the disintegration of its canal- 

 cells and of the ventral canal-cell 

 cut ofl' in the formation of the 

 Neck of oosphere. 



The vegetative reproduction of 

 the gametophyte is very varied. 

 The chief feature of it is the ease 

 with wliich almost any part of the plant can produce 

 protonemal filaments, even root hairs doing so if exposed 

 to light in a moist atmosphere. Similar outgrowths may 

 spring from the rhizoids, or from the leaves, or frcm 



Fi(/. 875. A. Apex of stioot of Funaria 

 with two archegonia. 

 archegouium, showing mode of 

 separation of the cells, c. Immature 

 archegonium. After Sachs. 



