RHODOPHYCE^E, OR FLORIDE^E 209 



valid generic type Chantransia. The species of 

 Chantransia are mostly epiphytic and very minute, 

 consisting of branching rows of cell-filaments spring- 

 ing from a membranous base and terminating upwards 

 as a rule in fine long hairs. The reproductive 

 processes have been fully studied in Ch. corymbifera. 

 When the carpogonium has been fertilised it begins 

 to sprout on one side and to produce the gonimo- 

 blast upwards. There is ultimately thus formed a 

 naked corymbose fruit (cystocarp), the terminal cells 

 producing the carpospores. The antheridia are in 

 similar corymbose clusters. The so-called tetraspores 

 remain undivided, are in fact monospores; but on 

 germinating, as has been observed in Ch. secundata, 

 the monospore first divides into four, and then very 

 closely resembles a tetraspore. This division then 

 proceeds in the same plane, thus giving rise to the 

 membranous base of Chantransia, from which the 

 erect filaments spring. 



In Nemalion the fertilised carpogonium bulges 

 upwards, and the upper portion is divided off as a new 

 cell from the free surface of which the gonimoblast 

 springs. In this genus and in Helminthocladia, a 

 kind of envelope of filaments arises from the carpo- 

 gonial branch and adjacent cells. In Liagora the 

 thallus is slightly encrusted with carbonate of lime, 

 but remains very slender and even viscid. It 

 consists, as in Nemalion and Helminthora, of a 

 number of united axial filaments, clothed with dense 

 lateral branches at right angles to the axis. In all 

 the genera, except Chantransia, the thallus is more 

 or less gelatinous in consistence. 



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