Abstract
Unlike most of the higher plants, bryophytes are not found as single individuals but in groups of individuals which have characteristic features depending on their family, genus or species. These features enable the experienced bryologist to identify many genera and often even species from quite a distance. The shape and structure of the groups of individuals are determined by two different factors. The protonema produced from a spore forms one to several buds, each of which grows to become an ‘individual’. The individuals are thus at the very outset part of an assemblage. Each individual (moss shoot) has a genetically fixed method of ramification, depending on species, genus or family, a particular ‘growth-form’ in the narrower meaning of the term. Assemblage of individuals and growth-form, modified by external conditions, together provide the characteristics which can be described as the ‘life-form’. In the following pages we hope to show that the life-forms of bryophytes are very different in several plant formations and that this diversity is closely related to their life conditions.
It is no use trying to define an organic structure in conceptual terms, nature does not create organs on this basis. All we can do is to try to provide a useful nomenclature for what exists in nature.
Translated from K. Goebel (1883)
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Mägdefrau, K. (1982). Life-forms of Bryophytes. In: Smith, A.J.E. (eds) Bryophyte Ecology. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-5891-3_2
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