A New Type of Branching in Liverworts

Abstract

RECENTLY, we began a study of the morphogenetic effect of various factors on the gemmæ of Marchantia polymorpha and Lunularia cruciata. These structures offer excellent material for such studies, since they are readily obtainable in quantity at all seasons of the year, are large enough to be handled readily, but small enough to be economical of space and require no special equipment for their study beyond some Petri dishes and a dissecting microscope. We have found that they are sensitive to treatments of many kinds; but for some reason they seem to have been overlooked, for we have been able to find only one paper on experimentation with them—that of Nagai¹, who plasmolysed them with rather interesting results.