BEYOPHYTES. 



57 



kinds of shoots : male, female, and hermaphrodite, 

 according to Ruthe, who found antheridia at the base 

 of the archegonia in the female shoots. 



C. Muller found, in Leucobryum giganteum, the 

 archegonia transformed into " branchlets," and no 

 paraphyses present, while the pericheetium was exu- 

 berantly developed. Antheridia occurred on these 

 female plants. He had never previously found male 

 flowers anywhere. The plant is normally dioecious. 



Linclberg found in the moss Brachythecium erythro- 

 rhizon transitions from archegonia to antheridia. 



Limpricht also observed transitional structures be- 

 tween antheridia and archegonia in the liverworts 

 Jungermdnnia Kaurini and Gephalozia Gottschei. 



Ekstrand describes the transformation of a male 

 branch into a vegetative shoot in the liverwort Har- 

 panthus Flo toi rianus. 



Marchal made the very interesting observation that 

 the moss-plants which were produced by regeneration of 

 the sporophyte of dioecious forms were hermaphrodite. 



All these phenomena clearly suggest that, firstly, 

 the hermaphrodite condition is the original, primitive 

 one, and secondly, that there is no essential or real 

 distinction between the two kinds of sexual organs, 

 just as is also apparent from transitional structures 

 observed in the higher plants. Marchal's observation 

 seems to show that the mode of origin of moss-plants 

 by regeneration of sporophyte-tissues upsets the 

 balance of the organism and causes it to revert to an 

 ancestral condition. 



The final subject which will be treated of in con- 

 nection with the sexual generation is that of the 

 multiplication or reduction of the sexual organs. 



The former phenomenon appears to be rare. Warn- 

 storf mentions a case of a second much" smaller 

 antheridium branching off from the base of another 

 immediately above its short stalk in the moss Fontinalis 

 antipyretica. 



