(nS) 



in popular speech as "pond-scums" or "ooze." In the 

 natural unmagnified condition, many plants of this sort 

 seem quite the reverse of attractive, but when placed under 

 a sufficiently powerful microscope many of them reveal a 

 rare beauty. The "sea mosses," or "seaweeds," gradually 

 lose much of their natural beauty of coloration on pro- 

 longed exposure to the light, but the prevailing elegance 

 and symmetry of form and structure persist. 



Following the plants of the seaweed type are several 

 representatives of the smaller fungi. The first of these 

 specimens illustrates the resting spores of the parasitic 

 fungus that causes the well-known rust of rose leaves. 

 The second shows a vertical section through the cluster-cup 

 stage of a fungus that draws its nourishment from the 

 living tissues of the leaves of violets. Of the fungi which 

 live upon decaying refuse matter, Ascobolus is one of the 

 more interesting among those selected for exhibition. In 

 this, the spores, or propagating cells, are borne in groups 

 of eight within transparent ellipsoidal sacs, and at maturity 

 these sacs, each enclosing eight spores, are ejected with 

 considerable force. Under the next microscope are shown 

 sections through the gills of a common mushroom, illustrat- 

 ing the manner in which its very minute and numerous 

 spores are borne. 



Then follow specimens of the liverworts or scale-mosses, 

 plants in which the differentiation of the vegetative body 

 into stem and leaves becomes first clearly evident. One of 

 these, a Frullania, has a part of each leaf peculiarly modi- 

 fied- so as to form a reservoir for water. By aid of this 

 device, the frullanias and their allies are able to thrive in 

 drier situations than are in favor with most of the order to 

 which they belong. Preparations are exhibited showing 

 also the vegetative structure and methods of reproduction 

 of the true mosses. Especially interesting is the "peri- 

 stome" of one of the mosses, which is a fringe of peculiar 

 appendages surrounding the mouth of the little urn in 

 which the minute dust-like spores are borne. These ap- 



