1) The twining of spiral thickenings was examined on the basis of innumerable elaters in a large number of specimens from various corners of the world.
2) The spiral thickening of elaters was almost universally sinistrorse (left-handed) in the Hepaticae and Anthocerotae.
3) A few exceptions were found in Conocephalum conicum and C. supradecompositum, where the majority of elaters in a capsule possessed sinistrorse thickenings but the minority (less than ca. 1％) had dextrorse (right-handed) ones.
4) The elaters in Conocephalum showed an extraordinarily wide range of variation, and the dextrorse thickenings were found only in the short and thick elaters. This suggested that the exceptional dextrorse elaters might be transformed from the originally sinistrorse ones by the conversion of the axis.
