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The Museum Gazette 



remarkable power of carrying it up upon their surfaces, that 

 is, amongst their leaves. 



(6) Most mosses love a moist atmosphere, since it is chiefly 

 from the air that they acquire their food. 



(7) So efficient is the arrangement on the outsides of the 

 stems of mosses for drawing up water, that if you put a few 

 strands of sphagnum-moss into a tumbler of water, they will 

 act syphon- wise and empty it upon the table. 



(8) Many mosses are annuals or even of only a few months' 

 life. Others, however, have an almost unlimited duration 

 of life, their upper parts continuing to grow whilst the lower 

 are dead. The peat underlying a moss-bog is often many 

 feet in thickness. 



(9) Although mosses can multiply with extraordinary ease 

 — the least bit of the plant or of its roots being capable of 

 budding and growth — yet they also possess what are equi- 

 valent to male and female flowers, the latter of which produce 

 " fruit." 



(10) The flowers, both male and female (Anthevidia and 

 Pistilidia) are very inconspicuous and are embedded amongst 

 the leaves. When, however, impregnation has been effected, 

 the female flower develops into a structure which is often of 

 conspicuous size and great beauty of form. This structure, 

 the fruit, was known to older botanists as the " Urn " of the 

 moss, and was said to be placed on a stem. We now speak 

 of a sporangium, or sporogonium or spore-capsule, and say 

 that it is mounted on a seta or bristle. 



(11) The male elements in the mosses — the equivalents of 

 pollen grains — are not conveyed by the air, nor by insects, but 

 travel in the water which surrounds the moss-stem. They 

 are known as spermatozoids, and probably possess the power 

 of spontaneous movement. 



(12) The spores of mosses if sown on earth germinate and 

 produce a green filamentous structure which spreads over the 

 surface and produces " roots," but for a certain time no 

 leaves. There is no demonstrable embryo, no cotyledons, no 



