82 NEW ARRANGEMENT OF 
the most easily examined ; " the lower part is strongly re- 
ticulated ; the reticulations very irregular, and the bars or 
cellular divisions remarkable, being uniform in their dia- 
meter, which is considerable, smooth, semitransparent, and 
of a peculiar inflated appearance, difficult to describe or re- 
present. Before the leaf begins to contract, the reticulations 
cease, and a number of conferva-like filaments are produced, 
which seem to be seldom if ever jointed_, but are long, and 
generally much entangled. The colour of all the leaves is 
a light-green, tinged with a brown that increases in age ; 
but the filaments are even then generally diaphanous, and 
exactly resemble the dark-coloured filaments that are to be 
met with on every specimen towards the upper part of the 
bulb*" 
Obs. What we have said under DipJiyscium^ equally 
applies to the structure of the interior of the theca of this 
" Regina Muscorum." The only difference seems to be, that 
the little pillar or column which supports the sporuiar sac 
(it may almost be called a continuation of the interior of the 
seta) is dilated half-way up, into a small hollow globe. 
The economy of this part we have not been able to conjec- 
ture, nor have other botanists been more successful. Our 
observations relative to the peristome of Diphyscium also 
apply here ; in that genus, however, it is stiictly simple ; 
in Buochaumia it is double. The outer one has been al- 
ready described as composed of numerous filiform cilia; 
these cilia do not, however, seem to be free to their base, 
but to be more or less laterally connected, so much so, in- 
deed, as to form a sort of corona^ equal in height to the 
inner peristome ; " eminet ab inde corona? imago, e numero- 
* Gh,evili,e» Wern. Trans, vol. iii. p. 445. 
