the substance of that body which occupies the centre of the capsule, and to which botanists have given the name of columnula or columella. The supposed seeds of this author, however, having entirely escaped the two most acute and experienced observers in this department of botany, Schmidel and Hedwig, in all the species of which they have given dissections, it might fairly be concluded that they are not of universal existence, and this alone would be sufficient perhaps to overturn the hypothesis. But it would be more satisfactory, if, while the accuracy of these excellent observers was confirmed in other instances, the cause of that appearance, which I apprehend has misled M. Beauvois, could at the same time be pointed out. The species more particularly described and figured by him in the American Transactions is Hypnum velutinum; which therefore, had it been in a proper state, I should have preferred as the subject of my examination; but as he asserts that his observations were repeated, and with similar results, on all the species of mosses found in the neighbourhood of Paris and Lisle, I have chosen Funaria hygrometrica, perhaps the most general plant in existence; which therefore must have been examined by him, and is within the reach of every one.
As, according to M. Beauvois, the action of the pollen on the seeds does not take place till the separation of the operculum, he probably did not conceive it necessary to observe the capsule until it had acquired its full size, and was in fact nearly ripe, or, as he terms it, in blossom. At 314] this period he examined under the microscope a transverse section of the capsule, in which, as appears both from his description and figure, he found a dense stratum of granular matter, which he considered to be pollen, situated immediately within the inner membrane; while in the substance occupying the centre, which he describes as reticulated, he observed scattered granules, in size and appearance like those of the pollen already mentioned: these he regards as the genuine seeds, and the containing organ he calls the capsule.
It is remarkable that he nowhere expressly states the
