STRUCTURE AND SYSTEMATIC POSITION OF CHANTRANSIA. 215 
clearly understood that we do not call in question the existence 
of a protonemal form of Lemanea which resembles, in a super- 
ficial way, Chantransia ; nor do we contend that Peter or Prof. 
Atkinson are mistaken in their interesting observations except 
in this, that their protenemal forms are species of Chantransia. 
Enough has been said to show that this has been too hastily 
assumed. One might as reasonably call the protoneme of a moss 
the Conferva-form. This confusion of a protonemal form of 
Lemanea with Chantransia has thus been rendered worse con- 
founded by the fact of true species of Chantransia growing on 
Lemanea. 
The question of the asserted relationship between Chantransia 
and Batrachospermum is a much more difficult one; and our ob- 
servations do not directly touch it. The so-called *Chantransia- 
forms" bear non-sexual spores. Are these true monosporanges or 
not? As bearing, however, most weightily on this question, we 
may here claim to have established a freshwater group of species 
of Chantransia, consisting of Ch. Boweri and Ch. investiens (the 
genus Balbiania scarcely possesses validity ), in all generic points 
resembling the marine species Ch. corymbifera. They are not 
only reproduced non-sexually by monospores, but sexually as 
well. There is therefore a good and valid genus Chantransia 
in fresh water as well as in the sea; and it may be added (though 
a small matter, yet an indicative one) that these freshwater 
species exhibit that form of growth called innovation, which 
Mr. Harvey Gibson tells us he has observed in the marine genus 
Rhodochorton, so nearly related to the marine Chantransia. 
This being so, it appears to us that the burden of proof (in this 
matter of Batrachospermum and Chantransia) is shifted from our 
shoulders to those of M. Sirodot and his supporters—the required 
proof being that his *Chantransia-forms ” are anything more than 
sporophytic shoots of Batrachospermum resembling Chantransia. 
We have seen how it has fared with the *Chantransia-forms ” of 
Lemanea. It is open, of course, to those who prefer it, to contend 
that the sexual reproductive organs of Ch. investiens are merely 
the result of abnormal circumstances operating on a form which 
ordinarily is a sporophytic condition of Batrachospermum, for 
example. Here, again, let us take warning by the case of Lemanea. 
Further, the observation of these was made by M. Sirodot 
himself, 
It would be also a possible contention that Ch. Boweri ought 
