Marchantiophyta

All the non-vascular plants are collectively referred to as bryophytes, and who knows how many different sorts there used to be back in the olden days, but we can currently meet three phyla of bryophytes in person.

The mosses in phylum Bryophyta, the liverworts in phylum Hepatophyta, and the hornworts in phylum Anthocerophyta.

Taken together, there are over 24,000 species of Bryophytes out there.

About 15,000 are mosses, 9,000 are liverworts, and only about 100 are hornworts.

Orifice shows that there is no peristome.

Liverworts or hepatic mosses, Hepaticae, 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.

Those of the moss-like kind, sometimes called scale mosses, have their tender spore cases splitting into four valves, and with their spores are intermixed some slender, spiral, and very hygrometric threads called elaters, which are thought to aid in the dispersion of the spores.