The characteristics, then, of the mosses are, that the sexual generation is leafy, the one or two asexual generations are thalloid, and that the spore-bearing generation is in parasitic connection with the sexual generation.

The sexual generation is a small green thalloid structure called a prothallium, which bears antheridia and archegonia, each archegonium having a neck-canal and oosphere, which is fertilized just as in the moss.