THE HIGHER CRYPTOGAMIA. 87 



period ; Gottsclie first put a final end to it* by showing 

 the destructibility of this membrane by sulphuric acid, the 

 action of which was resisted by the substance of the spiral 

 thread. Gottsche showed also that the coloured thicken- 

 ings of the cell- membranes of the capsule-walls comport 

 themselves in this respect like the spiral thread of the 

 elaters, and by this discovery was in a position to give the 

 most satisfactory representations of the course of these 

 thickenings of the walls of the elater-cells and of the cells 

 of the capsule-wall. f 



We are indebted to the same author for an explanation 

 of the development of the perianth of the Jungermanniae. He 

 showed | that the perianth in the Jungermanniae is formed 

 in the same way as in Marchantia polymorpha, where it had 

 been observed by Hedwig § and Mirbel, [| and where it 

 takes place at a late period, after the commencement of the 

 formation of the fruit ; he described the development of the 

 perianth of the principal types, and showed that the involucre 

 of Trichocolea is nothing more than the very fully developed 

 calyptra, similar to that of Aneura. 



Schmidel's discovery of the self-motile bodies in the 

 antheridia of a cryptogamic plant was made in a Junger- 

 mannia, in Fossombronia pusilla.\ The attachment of the 

 antheridium to a stalk is first well figured by Hedwig in 

 the same plant.** The first figure of the spermatozoa of 

 a Jungermannia — Aneura pinguis — was given by Meyen.ff 

 The existence and nature of these bodies had in the mean 

 time been discovered in Sphagnum by Unger, and the 

 cilia by Thuret in Chara. Gottsche afterwards figured 

 those of Haplomitrium HooJceri, Alicularia scalaris> and 

 Fossombronia pusilla ;%% lately Thuret has given those of 

 Pdlia epiphytta and Fossombronia pusilla.^\ 



* ' Nova Acta,' A. C. L., xx, pars i, 360. 



f /. c, t. xvii, f. a — d. 



% I. c, p. 54=4. 



§ ' Theoria generationis,' p. 177, t. xxvi, f. 6, 7. 



|| 'Mem. Acad, des Sc. Inst, de France,' xiii (1835), 380. 



% 'Icon, plant.,' p. 85. 

 ** 'Theoria generationis,' t. xx, f. a, a. 



ft ' Neues system der Pflanzenphysiologie,' Bd. iii (1839), t, xii, f. 39, 40. 

 %% ' Nova Acta,' A. C. L., xx, pars i, t. xvi. 

 \\ ' Ann. d. Sc.,' iii se>., t. xvi, 10, 11. 



