ON THE BUXBAUMIA APHYLLA. 447 



Schmiedel, in the Amoenitates Academical of Lin- 

 naeus, (%./;. 



In examining a very young plant, only just emer- 

 ged from the bulb, with the pistil on its summit, I 

 found the bulb evidently hollow to a certain degree, 

 as well as the pistil itself. This hollow perichae- 

 tium terminated in a fleshy root, and might belong 

 to an old plant. I could not, however, detect any 

 thing like an internal bulb in any of the specimens 

 which I dissected ; and what Schmiedel has figured 

 as the Bulbus ex villo exemptus, which is copied 

 into the Amoen. Acad. (fig. k.) 9 1 cannot but conceive 

 to exist more in imagination than in reality. The 

 cavity is gradually filled up ; and this seems to take 

 place by the mere thickening of the seta, as the 

 plant advances to maturity. 



The character of the root of Buocbawnia, I have 

 found to be uniform in every individual I have exa- 

 mined. Its length is from a line, to a line and 

 quarter. Its thickness considerable, to where it 

 branches off, into three or four divisions. Its sub- 

 stance is fleshy and brittle. The bulb of this moss 

 exists, therefore, in appearance, rather than in fact, 

 and chiefly receives its external character from what 

 J take to be the remains of old leaves, which pro- 

 duce the same effect as the accumulation of old sti- 

 pules in many phaenogamous plants. The root it- 

 self, being very brittle, is easily lost ; and being, be- 

 sides, often tortuous, and generally passing off ob- 

 liquely from the bulb, it is more liable to injury , 



