38 NATURAL SCIENCE. Jan., 



Phaeosporeas according to the motility or non-motility of the spores 

 would exclude this species entirely from Ectocarpns, and necessitate a 

 new genus of Acinetosporeae, but Mr. Sauvageau is of opinion that, 

 with our imperfect knowledge of the reproductive organs, more stress 

 ought to be laid on morphological characters in classification, thus 

 preventing the confusion that arises from a too ready multiplication 

 of genera and species. 



C. Sauvageau (i6) has also made a most interesting discovery of 

 unilocular sporangia in Asperococcus compressns. Buffham, who first 

 noted their occurrence in the genus, found them growing in sori on 

 A . bitllosus ; in the case of A . compressns they grow in irregular patches 

 almost covering the frond. 



In the last number of the Phycological Memoirs Miss F. 

 Whitting, in conjunction with the present writer, has published an 

 account of the fruits of Macrocystis and Postelsia (lo). It is found that 

 the sporangia grow in sori at the base of deep, over-arching furrows, 

 a cross-section of which very forcibly recalls the conceptacles of 

 Splachnidium, and confirms the view that the function of conceptacles 

 in the brown seaweeds is mainly protective. 



Mr. Murray (g) has given an account of a number of calcareous 

 pebbles from a pond in Michigan formed of various species of 

 Oscillarieas, organisms that are commonly so encrusted only in 

 hot springs. A comparison was made with some pebbles found in 

 Lough Belvidere, near MuUingar, and the same Alga, Schizothrix 

 fasciculata, was found predominant there also. 



A beautiful specimen of Pachytheca, more complete than any of 

 those formerly found, has also been figured and described by 

 Mr. Murray (8) " not out of conviction that Pachytheca is an Alga, 

 but because if it be a plant at all it is most probably an Alga," 

 The specimen lay like a little ball in an outer cup, like an egg in an 

 egg-cup, and the broken edges of the cup showed that it was composed 

 of radial chambers which strongly resembled the sporangial rays of 

 Acetahilaria. But there the resemblance ceases, there is nothing in 

 the verticillate Siphoneae to correspond with the Pachytheca sphere. 



A very interesting morphological paper (13) by Professor PhilHps, 

 of Bangor College, is devoted to red seaweeds, " the development 

 of the cystocarp in Rhodomelaceae"; it is well illustrated and very full 

 and clear. The author follows closely the discoveries of Dr. Schmitz, 

 comfirming and completing them. In Rhodomela he has been unable to 

 trace any ooblastema filaments from the carpogonial cell to the 

 auxiliary cell, or any fusion between them, but suggests that there 

 may have been a transference of nuclear matter through fine pores — 

 a kind of fertilisation process. He has been able to follow out most 

 minutely the development that follows fertihsation, viz., the cutting 

 off, from the presumably fertilised auxiliary cell, of the upper 

 cell, which gives rise to the spores, the detachment and withering 

 of the carpogonial branch, and the branching of the central cell 



