( J. Blasia.J 
BRITISH JUNGERMANNIAE. 
The Gemmce of this plant are of two kinds, and highly curious from their situation, which 
is perfectly different from that in every other species of the genus yet known, and 
deserving of very particular description. 
I shall first notice those bodies which by most botanists are looked upon as the seeds, whilst 
their receptacle has been considered the capsule, upon the shape of which, principally, 
the character of the genus Blasia has been established ! This receptacle is found plentifully 
in the spring and summer months ; one, or rarely two, upon each segment of a frond, 
always towards the extremity, and always upon the nerve. This, in an early stage, forms 
a swelling of an ovate figure, or even ventricose; at the upper extremity furnished with a 
beak, at first short, acuminate, and closed (tab. 82. f. f. 4. 10), at length becoming 
lengthened out, cylindrical and hollow throughout (tab. 82. f. f. 1. 14). A section of 
this (tab. 82. f. 14) discovers numerous sphaerieal small bodies, enveloped in a perfectly 
transparent gelatinous mass, and apparently floating in it. Each of these is cellular, 
reticulated, the cells of very unequal sizes (tab. 82. f. 16), furnished with a minute 
radicle, even before they are discharged from the receptacle. This discharge takes place 
through the tube, and does so the more readily in dry weather, when the fronds collapse, 
and force the gemmae towards the mouth, where they are often collected into a capitulum 
by means of the gelatine. 
On the dispersion of these Gemma, they fall not only on the ground in great number, but 
on the fronds themselves, where they, sooner or later, according to the fineness of the 
season, develop themselves, becoming tufts of small green scales, scattered over the apices 
of the frond, where they are retained by means of the incurved margins (tab. 84. f. f. 1. 2. 4). 
Their appearance is totally unlike the perfect plant; being of an ovate figure, dentato- 
spinose, three or four collected together, and resting on their base, which, however, does 
not seem to have any point of attachment to the frond ; for they are removed by the 
slightest touch. These, it may be supposed, are expanded in an advanced state of their 
growth; the scales taking a different form, and the teeth becoming dilated into lobes*. The 
similarity between these scales and those of the underside of the frond is verv considerable; 
but their difference has been already explained. 
The second kind of Gemmce is situated on the under side of the frond, but never on the nerve. 
These appear in the form of small, roundish, dark-green dots, within the substance of 
the plant ; but evidently nearer the lower epidermis than the upper, though visible on 
both sides, on account of their deep color. As they grow older, they become prominent, 
and form tubercles (tab. 82. f. f. 4. 6. and tab. 84. f. 2) on the under side of the frond ; 
yet always continue covered with a slight pellicle, out of which, if the swelling be 
opened with the point of a knife, the gemmae readily fall, and are then seen to be spherical 
masses, of a substance between granular and pulpy, almost black, compact, but quite 
free from any membranaceous covering like the true anthers ; nor are they at all cellular, 
like the gemmae just described. 
Although, for want of a better term, 1 have applied the name of Gemmce to these bodies, 
I am far from supposing that these apparently unorganized granules have the same 
* That these young fronds should be so unlike the old ones is not so remarkable, when we consider the different 
appearance of many seedling cryptogamous plants from perfect ones, particularly the Ferns. 
