PILL-WORT. 
397 
or four in a cluster, and immediately above them rise an equal 
number of erect, slender, smooth, setiform, pointed leaves : 
these are hollow like the roots and rhizoma ; they are rather 
longer than the roots, and when they first make their appear- 
ance are rolled up in a manner precisely analogous to that ex- 
hibited in the circinate vernation of ferns. At many of the 
points of the rhizoma whence spring the leaves and roots, it 
also emits a small lateral branch, which bears leaves and roots 
at intervals like the parent rhizoma; and when this, in the 
course of nature, decays, these lateral branches continue vigo- 
rous, and become the nuclei whence future plants originate. 
The lateral branches occur with great regularity alternately on 
the right and left of the parent rhizoma ; in 
proportion to their distance from the terminal 
point of the rhizoma these lateral branches in- 
crease in length, and the angles at which they 
join it become more and more obtuse. 
The capsule is placed on a short stalk in the 
axil of the leaves : when full grown it occa- 
sionally attains the size of an ordinary pepper- 
corn, and is nearly spherical, but slightly elongated at its apex ; 
it is closely covered with a dense investment of hair. When 
mature it opens at the apex, dividing longitudinally into four 
parts, each of which continues attached by its inferior extremity 
to the common footstalk. Each of these four parts is hollow, 
and its cavity, which retains the figure of a quarter sphere, is, 
according to Jussieu, filled with an 
hermaphrodite flower composed of 
stamens and pistils arranged on a 
common placenta. This placenta 
is a membranous band attached to 
the interior spherical portion of the 
membrane which invests the cap- 
sule. The pistils are ranged on the 
inferior part of the placenta, and 
consequently occupy the lower por- 
tion of the common receptacle, as exhibited in the annexed 
cut, which is copied, with some slight alterations, from Mr. 
