Further to note of 17 September I noted the following on the 25th:
6 weeks after collecting the hornwort specimen the antheridia detaches
easily from thallus.
Several of peripheral container cells have sperm swimming around,
presumably waiting to be expelled.
Sperm was still being expelled from the antheridium which suggests the
motive force is at least partly self-contained.
I took a 74 second video of the event (137MB .avi file) which is too
large to offer on the web. I have produced highly compressed (and
pixellated) versions which are now available as .flv and .swf files.
These together with image of detached antheridium are linked from near
the bottom of http://www.bluetier.org/nature/hornworts.htm
The video is rather jittery but I may have the opportunity to get a
second shot.
Regards, Tom Thekathyil
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