43 HOFMEISTER, ON 



the terminal bud, which is surrounded by closely crowded 

 superior and inferior leaves, and which is usually very 

 difficult to make out, on account of the buds situated near 

 it and upon it ; this terminal bud is a mass of cellular 

 tissue, which, in shoots capable of further development, has 

 a much-flattened conical form, whilst in shoots whose 

 longitudinal growth has terminated it is flat and emarginate 

 at the apex ; it bears on its under side amphigastria, and 

 on the other side scale-like, inbricated superior leaves. 

 Numerous hairs, similar to those on the very young parts of 

 Pellia and Aneura, are scattered amongst the most newly 

 formed leaves (PL VI, figs. 17, 18). 



It is well known that numerous reproductive buds are 

 formed on the under side of the stem of Blasia, Their 

 mode of development is very like that of the similar organs 

 in Anthoceros. The contents of one of the inner cells of 

 the tissue of the stem (which cells are only separated from 

 the under side by a single cellular layer) become transformed 

 into a cell occupying the whole cavity of the mother-cell. 

 This daughter-cell changes into a roundish body, composed 

 of small cubical cells, which contain numerous very small 

 chlorophyll-bodies of a dark bluish-green colour. The 

 cellular layer of the under surface of the stem which covers 

 the reproductive buds becomes swollen to a hemispherical 

 shape by the increase in size of the latter. 



1 have not seen these reproductive buds develope into 

 young plants. Corda figures their germination in Sturm's 

 Deutschl. Flora, II abth., taf. 32. Bischoff treats this 

 figure as a product of the author's imagination. I do not 

 agree with Bischoff" s opinion. It is true that the branched 

 rootlets which Corda represents are not found in any liver- 

 wort. This portion of the figure is, at all events, erroneous. 

 I consider it, however, beyond dispute that the organs in 

 question are really reproductive buds, judging from the 

 analogy which they bear to the undoubted buds of Antho- 

 ceros which originate in like manner. If old buds of 

 Blasia are opened under water, their cells separate from 

 one another in the surrounding fluid. The like phenomenon 

 occurs in the undoubted buds of Anthoceros and Riccia, 

 if the surrounding tissue continues to retain its vitality 



