210 MR. G. MURRAY AND MISS E. $. BARTON ON THE 
by M. Pringsheim (Beitr. zur Morphol. d. Meeres-Algen, p. 26). 
I have never seen in these plants anything but undivided spores, 
having a tendency more or less to group themselves on short 
lateral branches, in such a manner as to form in certain species 
small glomerules, sometimes replaced by clusters of antherids. 
That these glomerules or groups of spores represent the most 
simple state of conceptacular fructification of the other Florideæ, 
one can hardly doubt, especially when one compares them with 
organs of the same nature in other genera; &c.” 
Though Harvey was wrong as to the division of the spores into 
tetraspores, he was nevertheless right in his view of the morpho- 
logical value of these bodies. They are commonly called mono- 
spores, and understood to be the homologues of the tetraspores 
of the other Floridew. That Thuret, though right in his obser- 
vation, was wrong in regarding them as equivalent to concepta- 
cular fruits, was made abundantly clear by the description of the 
true cystocarps of Chantransia corymbifera by Bornet and Thuret, 
* Notes Algologiques,’ p. 16, tab. v. (1876). Before this, how- 
ever, in 1873, M. Sirodot described the monospores, antherids, 
trichogynes, and cystocarps of a freshwater species, Ch. investiens, 
Lenorm. (Comptes Rendus, vol. Ixxvi. pp. 1338-39). M. Sirodot, 
however, thought fit to remove this species from Chantransia and 
make it the type of a new genus, Balbiania (Ann. Sci. Nat. 1876, 
6* ser. tom. ii. p. 146). Whether this distinction should now 
stand will be seen later. It is mentioned here now because the 
discovery of its sexual reproductive orgaus takes precedence of 
the case of Ch. corymbifera. 
As the matter now stands, the position of the genus in the 
estimation of botanists is as follows :—In the sea there occur 
certain species typified by Ch. corymbifera, Thur., of which both 
the sexual reproductive system and the propagation by mono- 
spores have been described and figured by Bornet (Joc. eit.). In 
fresh water there occur certain other species (excepting for the 
present Ch. investiens= Balbiania investiens, Sir.), which are re- 
garded by M. Sirodot as non-sexual forms of Batrachospermum. 
His views on this subject are most fully expounded in his elabo- 
rate treatise, ‘ Les Batrachospermes,’ Paris, 1884. According to 
him these “ Chantransia-forms ” are the sporophytes of Batracho- 
spermum,—forms which do not attain a sexual reproduction unless 
in the shape of Batrachospermum—his own discovery of antherids 
and cystocarps in Oh. investiens having been swept from the track 
