Barbula muralis (Hedw.) Crome, 1805

Maier, Eva & Price, Michelle J., 2014, Georg Bojung “ Scato ” Lantzius-Beninga and his contributions on the anatomy of moss capsules: a transliteration from the original German texts, Boissiera 67, pp. 1-79 : 34-35

Barbula muralis .

I investigated the apex of young capules of this moss; in this state the peristome entirely presented the structure described in Barbula fallax . Some specimens had between normally thickened cords noticeable weak or thin ones.

Note. I feel obliged to mention here an extremely interesting abnormality which I could observe in the course of investigations of the spore formation in Syntrichia subulata . In a capsule of the cited moss, in the centre of the columella besides the normally arranged mother cells in the spore sac, I saw a group of cells which were revealed to be spore mother cells by the formation of cells inside, Tab. LVIII. Fig. 9 *, x. Other sections made from below and above in the same capsule demonstrated that a continuous cord of them, originating in the spore sac, ran through the inner of the capsule up to the upper part as shown by the schematic figure of a longitudinal section of the capsule, Fig. 9 **, xx. This observation, made but once, may be interesting in relation to a controversy, settled long ago, between

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Robert Brown and Palisot de Beauvois on the appearance of spores in the columella of mosses (compare Palisot de Beauvois in Mém. de la Société Linnéenne de Paris. Tom. I. p. 388, and Rob. Brown in its Vermischte Schriften by Nees v. Esenbeck p. 685).

Figures

Fig. 9. of a mature capsule of Barbula fallax, magnification x 500. Further explanations are in the text.