The plants grew so rapidly, that in the month of Octo ber following, numerous cliscilorm male plants appeared intermingled with very minute females. The latter hav ing attained their proper size by the end of November, then protruded the stigma beyond the leaves of the peri chmtium; and in the following spring capsules were obtained from them, from which tnore young plants were obtained.
Similar experiments were afterwards made with Gym nostomum pyriforme, Bryum trichodes, and caespitium, and all with the same success. Similar experiments have since been made by several botanists, and all have since been satisfied of the truth of Hedwig's positions regarding the seed, with the exception of the late inge nious De Beauvois, who contended that what Hedwig and every body but himself called seeds was really pollen, and that the true seeds were to be found in the Coln- mella. His hypothesis has been ably lefuted by Mr. Brown, in vol. x. of the Linn. Trans.; who shows, that what De Beauvois took for seeds, were merely some particles of what he calls the pollen, which had been carried into the cellular substance of the columella by the knife.
Unfortunately the limits within which this paper must be circurnscribrd, will not admit of our entering upon our reasons for considering the supposed cotyledons as a peculiar production. But we appeal to observation, whether they be natural divisions of the seeds, or whether they be not mere growths from it.
These are roundish or oval bodies, situated either in the axils of the leaves, or sometimes in the stellated ex .rerruties of the plants. They are totally different in structure from the anthera, never opening spontaneous ly, never containing a clear fluid, and they are never situated on a foot-stalk. When full grown, like the bulbs of the tyger lily, they fall off, and produce a plant similar in every respect to that on which they grew ; but this is a mere lateral extension of the life of the in dividual, as in the case of a sucker, a graft, or a layer, and not the commencement of the existence of a new being, as in a plant raised from the seed.
We shall close this chapter with a brief sketch of different hypotheses respecting the flowers and fruit of rnosses.
Micheli, who first investigated the flowers of mosses, considered the male as united, or bisexual flowers. The stamens he took for pistils, and the jointed threads for stamens ; and the capsules he considered as another sort of fruit. Dillenius mistook the male for the female flowers, and the female for the male, and misled Lin nxus. Hill considered the male flowers to be mere collections of buds ; the capsule he considered as a united flower, thc seeds being each a pistil, and the teeth being stamens,—a theory refuted hy the toothless species. Aleese adopted the opinion of Alicheli in regard to the male flower, and of Hill in regard to the capsule. Koelreuter modified Hill's system, considering the ca lyptra to be the stamen, and not the teeth. Gaertner, like Nleese and Koelreuter, speaks of the capsule as a united flower, but supposes the operculum to be the stamen. De Beauvais, as already mentioned, took the capsule for a united flower, the seeds for pollen, and the true seeds, he said, were contained in the columella. He most extraordinarily considcred the seeds to be fecun dated at the time of emission, the teeth, according to him, rnaterially aiding the fecundation by their motion. Lastly, Neckar may be mentioned,(though he was contemporary with Hedwig,) who sets out with informing us, that he will never allow any of the cryptogamic plants of Lin nxus to be endowed with sex ; and then gravely states that mosses are propagated by buds, which he calls bise menses steriles.