AFFINITIES AND CLASSIFICATION OF ALG E. 49 
The two last-mentioned Fungi are in no way connected with 
the cause of the disease; but, along with numerous Nematoids, 
flourished on or in the decaying portions. 
DESCRIPTION OF PLATE I. 
Fig. 1. Peronospora trichotoma, Mass., x 350 diam. 
2. Heterosporium Colocasie, Mass., X 350 diam. 
3. Cephalosporium acremonium, Corda, var., X 350 diam. 
On the Afin and Classification of Alge. By ArrRED W. 
BeyneY¥r, M.A., B.Sc., F.L.S., Lecturer on Botany at St. 
Thomas’s Hospital. 
[Read 3rd March, 1887.] 
[Norz.—The type used in printing the names of genera and 
higher groups has been specially arranged by the author to 
mark his views as to their relative rank. In this paper, there- 
fore, the usual method of printing such names adopted in this 
Journal is suspended.—Sec. L. 8.] 
WHETHER the organisms included for so long under the general 
name of Algw form in any sense a natural group, is a question 
which has been variously answered by different observers and 
theorisers. About fifteen years ago a system of classification of 
the Thallophytes was proposed, on authority entitled to ‚the 
highest respect *, which altogether abolished the bifurcation into 
Alge and Fungi. On this system the sole character made use 
of in their primary classification was the mode of reproduction. 
First came the Protophyta, in which no sexual mode of reproduc- 
tion is known, followed by three primary classes (in ascending 
order)—the Zygospore®, Oospores, and Carposporesm, distin- 
guished solely by the degree of complexity of the sexual process. 
Each of these four classes was then divided into a series con- 
taining chlorophyll and a series not containing chlorophyll, the 
former including the organisms hitherto known as Algæ, the 
latter those hitherto known as Fungi. 
* See Sachs, * Text-book of Botany, 2nd English edition, p. 244. 
LINN. JOURN.—BOTANY, VOL. XXIV. E Pr 
MTSO 
BOTANICAL 
FRA MMM 
reor 
