muschelkalk (mushelkalk)

[G., drite which it contains. muschetor, muschetour (mus'che-tor, -tör), n. [ mouscheter , F. moucheter , spot, a fly, a spot, Muschetors. Musci (mus'sī), n. pl. [NL., pl. of L. muscus, mo : see mo 1.] A large cla of cryptogamous plants of the group Muscineæ or Bryophyta; the mo es. They are low tufted plants, a few inches in height, always with a stem and distinct leaves, producing spore-cases (sporogonia) which usually open by a terminal lid and contain simple spores alone. The germinating spore gives rise in the typical families to a filamentous conferva-like prothallium, upon which is produced the leafy plant, these together constituting the sexual generation or oophyte. The sexual organs are antheridia and archegonia, and from the fertilized oösphere proceeds the sporogonium or "mo -fruit," which in itself comprises the non-sexual generation or sporophyte. The sporogonium or capsule, which is rarely indehiscent or splitting by four longitudinal slits, usu Alles interculum tene at com lum, and arising from of capsule, are monly one or two rows of rigid proce es, collectively the peristome, which are always some multiple of four; those of the outer row are called teeth; those of the inner, cilia. Between the rim of the capsule and the operculum is an elastic ring of cells, the annulus. The Musci are cla ified under four orders - the Bryaceæ or true mo es (which are further divided into acrocarpous, or terminal-fruited, and pleurocarpous, or lateral-fruited), Phascacece, Andræaceæ, and Sphagnaceæ. See cut under mo .