Liverwort

“ The liverwort is furnished with an external skin, beneath which is found a green resinous substance: the remainder is composed partly of gum, and partly of an animal fibrous matter, that is insoluble both by heat and the action of alkalies. In order to extract the gum from such plants, they are first scalded two or three times in boiling water ”

“ It is useless to multiply such cases, as everyone knows of the production of young plants from the ends of strawberry runners, the cutting up of potatoes, the universal garden practice of making cuttings, and the sprouting of willows, all of which are effective by virtue of this faculty of plants to produce young quite without the intervention of different sexes. Not so well known are the cases of a liverwort, a small relative of the mosses, which, if chopped into fine pieces, each will develop into a new plant. ”

“ Plants that are liver-shaped, as the herb Trinity, Liverwort, Agarick, Fermitory and Figs, are efficacious in bilious diseases.
Walnuts, Indian Nuts, Leeks and the root of Ragwort, because of their form, are said when duly prepared to further generation and prevent sterility. ”

“ ROCK LIVERWORT is a sort of liverwort that grows on rocks, and is of the nature of kelp or moss. It is esteemed as an excellent remedy against declines.
GARGIT or SKOKE is a large kind of weed, the leaves of which are about six inches long, and two inches and an half broad; they resemble those of spinage in their colour and texture, but not in shape. The root is very large, from which spring different stalks that run eight or ten feet high, and are full of red berries; these hang in clusters in the month of September, and are generally called pigeon berries, as those birds then feed on them. ”

“ If the affection has continued for any length, the animal should be bled. A decoction of the leaves and tops of wormwood and liverwort, produced by boiling them in soft water for six hours, may be given in doses of from half a pint to a pint and a half, according to the size, age, etc., of the animal. ”

“ The Liverworts have a very wide geographical distribution, and are specially abundant in moist shady situations; they grow on stones or damp soil, and occur as epiphytes on other plants. Marchantia, Pellia, and Jungermannia are among the better known British representatives of the class.
Considering the soft nature of the body of recent Liverworts, it is not surprising that they are poorly represented in a fossil state. In the absence of the sexual reproductive organs, or of the sporophytes, which have scarcely ever been preserved, exact identification is almost hopeless. ”

“ The vegetative plant-body possesses a different organisation on the ventral and dorsal side; it has the form of a thalloid creeping plant (Thalloid Liverworts) , or of a delicate stem with thin appendages or leaves without a midrib (Foliose Liverworts) . In most cases the body of the plant is made up of parenchymatous tissue, showing but little internal differentiation; in one or two genera a few strengthening or mechanical fibres occur among the thinner walled ground-tissue. On the germination of the spore, a feebly developed protonema is produced, which gives rise to the Liverwort plant. ”

“ The Moss or Liverwort plant is the sexual generation (gametophyte) , and as a result of the fertilisation of an egg-cell the asexual or spore-bearing generation (sporophyte) is produced. The sporophyte never exhibits a differentiation into stem and leaves. Asexual and vegetative reproduction are effected by means of spores, bulbils, or detached portions of the plant-body. Sexual reproduction is by means of biciliate antherozoids produced in antheridia and egg-cells formed singly in archegonia. ”

“ These comprise most of the April flowers, and may be found in great profusion in the Rock Creek and Piny Branch region.
In each little valley or spring run, some one species predominates. I know invariably where to look for the first liverwort, and where the largest and finest may be found. On a dry, gravelly, half-wooded hill-slope the bird's-foot violet grows in great abundance, and is sparse in neighboring districts. This flower, which I never saw in the North, is the most beautiful and showy of all the violets, and calls forth rapturous applause from all persons who visit the woods. ”

“ Make a quart of strong liverwort tea by extracting two sets of herbs in the same water, tie a tea cup of flaxseed in a bag and put with it; keep it covered while drawing; when the strength is all out, strain it on a pound of sugar, and let it boil slowly till it is thick--keeping it covered to prevent the strength from going off, when cold, bottle it, and set the bottle in a cool place while using it. Take a table-spoonful at a time about six times a day. ”

“ The Early Meadow-rue (T. dioicum) , found blooming in open, rocky woods during April and May, from Alabama northward to Labrador, and westward to Missouri, grows only one or two feet high, and, like its tall sister, bears fleecy, greenish-white flowers, the staminate and the pistillate ones on different plants.
Liver-leaf; Hepatica; Liverwort; Round-lobed, or Kidney Liver-leaf; Noble Liverwort; Squirrel Cup
Hepatica triloba (H. Hepatica)
Flowers--Blue, lavender, purple, pinkish, or white ”

“ Agarum, Claudea and Struvea are leaf-forms which are perforated like Aldrovanda among flowering plants. Enteromorpha, Asperococcus and Adenocystis are sack-forms. Dorsi-ventral algae are rare. Leveillea jungermanneoides bears a remarkable resemblance to a leafy liverwort. In the next group of forms the simplest are crusts attached to the substratum throughout their extent, and growing at the margin. Such are Myrionema, Ralfsia, Melobesia and Hildebrandtia. Others are attached throughout their extent, but also grow vertical filaments so as to form a velvety pile. ”

“ In most liverworts, on the other hand, water is absorbed directly by the whole general surface, and the rhizoids are of subordinate importance. Many forms only succeed in a constantly humid atmosphere, while others sustain drying for a period, though their powers of assimilation and growth are suspended in the dry state. ”

“ As is usual at the higher elevations in the tropics, the lower plants are relatively more abundant than at lower elevations. Besides, the tree ferns there were many others, including several Hymenophyllaceæ and two species of Danæa, which were growing abundantly upon the wet banks, and whose large liverwort-like prothallia were found in quantity. The wet banks also yielded a fair number of liverworts, and at the very summit the ubiquitous Lycopodium cernuum was abundant. ”

“ The Hepaticæ, or liverworts, are small, flowerless plants of very simple structure, which grow for the most part in moist places upon the bark of trees, surface of long-exposed rocks, earth, etc. One of the leading genera is Marchantia species of which abound on the earth of flower-pots in greenhouses and elsewhere. ”

“ When we learn that a flowering plant, as the Drosera intermedia, has been known to develop a young plant from the surface of one of its leaves, we are at once reminded of the proliferous growths and fructifying organs in the Liverworts. The occasional production of bulbils by Phænogams, ceases to be so surprising when we find it to be habitual among the inferior Acrogens, and when we see that it is but a repetition, on a higher stage, of that self-detachment which is common among proliferously-produced fronds. ”

“ The only doubtful question is (and the doubt is mainly, I think, peculiar to myself, certainly not being shared by the majority of botanists) whether the sporophyte of Mosses and Liverworts is really homologous with that of Pteridophytes and [81] Phanerogams, whether it may not rather be regarded as a parallel development along another line of descent from the Green Algæ. ”

“ While some of the inferior Hepaticæ or Liverworts, severally consist of little more than a thallus-like frond, among the higher members of this group, and still more among the Mosses and Ferns, we find a distinctly marked stem. [8] Some Archegoniates (or rather Rhizoids) have foliar expansions that are indefinite in their forms; and some have quite definitely-shaped leaves. Roots are possessed by all the more-developed genera of the class; but there are other genera, as Sphagnum, which have no roots. Here the fronds are formed of only a single layer of cells ”

“ Spore-case, detached calyptra, and top of more enlarged spore-case and detached lid, of Physcomitrium pyriforme (Fig. 527) : orifice shows that there is no peristome.
501. Liverworts or Hepatic Mosses (Hepaticæ) in some kinds resemble true Mosses, having distinct stem and leaves, although their leaves occasionally run together; while in others there is no distinction of stem and leaf, but the whole plant is a leaf-like body, which produces rootlets on the lower face and its fructification on the upper. ”

“ The great diversity of the chemical combinations that plants, instead of applying for their proper growth, store up in their tissues as a means of protection against the heat of the sun, the lower fungi, or animals, is really astonishing. Even in the liverworts we meet different substances neither the chemical nature nor the biological importance of which is clearly enough known. Among the ferns, only the under-ground stems are endowed with substances of strong qualities. ”

“ Sphaerocarpus, which occurs rarely in stubble fields, is in many respects one of the simplest of the liverworts. The small thallus bears the antheridia and archegonia, each of which is surrounded by a tubular involucre, on the upper surface of distinct individuals. The sporogonium has a small foot, but the sterile cells among the spores do not develop into elaters. ”

“ The DISTRIBUTION OF SEEDS is effected by the wind, the seeds being so exceedingly small and light. Many species moreover have peculiar, elater-like, fine, hygroscopic hairs in the ovary, which eject the seeds in a manner similar to the elaters of the Liverworts. ”

“ They learned not only to cling, but to suck up water to feed the cells above. Then the little spore buds raised their heads, and tried to grow into something that would attend to the business of starting new plants better.
Liver-worts look much like very green lichens or very flat mosses, but they can easily be told from both. No lichen is so green and moist, and the smallest mosses have true sterns and roots. The liver-wort is just a mat of tiny, flat leaves. One leaf grows out of another, without a sign of a stem. The whole plant is just a thousand leafed mat. ”

“ There, a scientist who has made a study of life in plants and animals, says: "The liver-worts were probably derived from the algae and, in turn, have given rise to mosses and ferns."
Very likely this is the way the algae managed to turn into liver-worts. You remember the algae learned to cling to rocks, to spread into feathery fronds and to grow bud cells or spores. These are hints of roots and leaves and seeds. If you lift a frond of sea
weed from the water the hair-like cells will all fall together, so they look to be one narrow blade-like leaf. ”

“ The leaf of the butterwort bears glandular hairs, and its margins curve inwards when excited by contact of various bodies, especially living insects, and, at the same time, these are caught in the viscid secretion of the glands, and their juices absorbed by the plant. The bladderworts are even more remarkably constructed, for they have a portion of their leaves developed into subaqueous bladders, with a narrow entrance beneath, defended by a complex valve, which facilitates the entrance of water insects or crustaceans, but prevents their exit. ”

“ Growing close to the shore is a high woody stonewort, with abundance of fleshy leaves and thousands of blossoms, delicate protruding stamens hanging over the waters of the sea itself. The plant with the small yellow fruit, which we take to be that of the apples of Sodom, also grows here. ”

“ The most familiar examples are the various species of Tradescantia (Fig. 88) , some of which are native, others exotic. Of the cultivated forms the commonest is one sometimes called “wandering-jew,” a trailing plant with zigzag stems, and oval, pointed leaves forming a sheath about each joint. Another common one is the spiderwort already referred to. In this the leaves are long and pointed, but also sheathing at the base. When the flowers are showy, as in these, the sepals and petals are different, the former being green. ”

“ The lobes, exhausted of their farinaceous matter, gradually dry, and fall off of themselves in a few weeks, when the plant has no further need of their assistance.—Certain herbs which grow on the mountains are of a very peculiar nature: their duration being very short, it often happens that the seed has not time to ripen; and, that the species may not be lost, the bud which contains the germ is formed upon the top of the plant, puts forth leaves, falls, and takes root. ”

“ Worms consume many fallen leaves; and it is known that lime goes on accumulating in leaves until they drop off the parent-plant, instead of being re-absorbed into the stem or roots, like various other organic and inorganic substances. [46] The ashes of a leaf of an acacia have been known to contain as much as 72 per cent. of lime. Worms therefore would be liable to become charged with this earth, unless there were some special means for its excretion; and the calciferous glands are well adapted for this purpose. ”