THE HIGHER CRYPTOGAM I A. 179 



(1. c, p. 777). The sporales of mosses and of all cellular 

 plants are analogous to the pollen of the vasculares." I can 

 claim as my own the account of the origin of the germinal 

 vesicle, of the dependence of its development upon the fact 

 of its impregnation, and the proof of the conformity between 

 the process of formation of the moss -fruit, and that of 

 the embryo of the vascular cryptogams, of the Coniferae, 

 and of the phanerogamia. 



The first accurate account of the development of the 

 moss-capsule was given by H. v. Mohl, (' Flora/ 1833, 

 p. 1 ; ' Vermische Schriften/ p. 72). He places in a very 

 clear light the relation of the columella of Sphagnum gracile 

 to the two walls of the capsule, of the apophysis, and 

 of the peristome. The original homogeneity of the cel- 

 lular tissue of the young, few-celled fruit-rudiment, has 

 often been noticed by Bischoff {e.g., in ' Nova Acta/ vol. 

 xvii, p. 917). The development of the spores in fours 

 in one mother-cell, was pointed out by Mohl (1. c, p. 72). 

 Lantzius-Beninga showed ('De evolutione sporidiorum 

 in capsulis muscorum/ Gottingen, 1844, pp. 7, 11, 17), 

 that a single annular cellular layer of the interior of the 

 capsule represents the primary mother- cells of the spores, 

 and that the mother-cells, in which the spores originate, 

 are formed out of these primary mother-cells, by their 

 repeated division into two parts. He recognised, in many 

 instances, the free state of the mother-cells within the 

 primary mother-cells, as for instance, in Orthotrichum 

 speciosum, Trichostomum pallidum, and Ggmnostomum 

 pyriforme ; and he discovered that the membrane both 

 of the primary mother-cells and of the mother-cells 

 became blue with iodine. In a later work, ' Bot. Zeit./ 

 1847, p. 17, and more clearly in ' Nova Acta/ vol. xiv, 

 the same observer gives an admirable account of the anato- 

 mical structure of the perfect moss-capsule, especially of 

 the peristome, which up to that time had been almost en- 

 tirely misunderstood. Lantzius-Beninga stated that the 

 teeth of the peristome (except in Splachnum and Polytri- 

 chum,) do not consist of perfect cells, but that during the 

 development of the peristome-teeth, a partial thickening 

 occurs in the walls of the cells belonging to a conical 



