274 THE VEGETABLE WORLD. 
Fellow colour. If this cap is raised (see No. 6) we see that it 18° 
the cover of an urn-shaped vessel, which contains a prismatic body — 
(No. 9) furnished with a species of covering (No. 8), seated be 
a small ledge which is circumscribed by a very thin ridge of greyish 
colour. Held horizontally, the ledge is composed of small pointed 
teeth curving towards the interior, and connected by a horizontal 
skin. There are sixty-four of these teeth. As to the interior of 
the prismatic body, it is hollow, and encloses a multitude of small 
greenish granules, perfectly free, and which make their escape Wi 
great facility when the urn bursts. 
There is every reason to believe that these granules reproduce 
the species by germination. There are certain other seeds, but 
their organisation is so simple, and show so little resemblance to 
the seeds of the higher orders of plants, that they are called spores. 
These are enclosed in the interior of a membranous sac, ieee 
covers the walls of the prismatic body, and adheres to fe centra 
axis called the columella. This prismatic body, in fact, is the “7” 
of the mosses. The free edge of the urn crowned by the we 
the peristomium ; here the peristome has sixty-four teeth. e 4 
covering reposing on the peristome bears the name of — 
The cap of yellow hair which shelters the urn almost entire y* 
the calyptra. Finally, the filament which contains the stem ee 
supports the urn is the theca. Of this nomenclature, Dr. Lindley 
the Outlines of Botany remarks, that to the uninitiated it pei i 
explanation, otherwise it might be supposed to apply to some egies . 
animal. “The calyptra,” he says, “may be understood 2 “e 
convolute leaf; the operculum another; the peristomium one ad 
more whorls of minute flat leaves; and the theca itself, the —_ 
distended apex of the stalk, the cellular substance of which separates 
in the form of sporules.” tas 
This urn, then, results from the development of a small sh 5 
bearing a strong resemblance to a long-necked bottle, which | 
traversed very perceptibly in its entire length by an open cai 
expanding at the summit in such a manner as to present ~ 
analogy with the pistil of plants of higher organisation, and W. ae 
has been called an archegonium. At first many ane ta) 
enclosed in the terminal rosette of the stem (as in 3 and 7, Fig. a 
____ but only one of these is ultimately developed into the urn borne" 
the summit of the theca. 
