581.151 107 



589.3 



IV 



Polymorphism in the Algae 



THE following is a translation of an extract (pp. 171-186) from 

 Professor Klebs' recent work " Die Bedingungen der Fort- 

 pflanzung bei einigen Algen und Pilzen," Jena, 1896, reviewed in 

 Natural Science, vol. x., p. 128 (Feb. 1897). 



The pages in question are written a propos of Prof. Klebs' 

 interesting discovery that the well-known alga, Botrydium granu- 

 latum, is not in reality so polymorphic as the botanical world has 

 believed since the publication in 1877 of Eostafinski and Woronin's 

 researches, but that the forms therein described belong, in reality, 

 to two very distinct algae, Botrydium granulatum, Wallroth, and 

 Brotococcus botryoidcs, Kiitzing, the latter being renamed Brotosiphon 

 lotryoidcs (Kiitzing) Klebs. 



But my immediate object is not so much to call attention to 

 this or any other of the interesting discoveries of which an account 

 is given in Prof. Klebs' important book, as to put into a form easily 

 accessible to everyone interested a most lucid and admirable dis- 

 cussion on a question which, to judge from my own experience, 

 must continually perplex students of algal literature. No one who 

 knows his work can doubt Prof. Klebs' authority to speak on the 

 topic, and it is unfortunate that his luminous remarks, which are 

 perfectly complete in themselves, should remain buried in the 

 middle of a chapter of his bulky volume, where they can only be 

 read by a few specialists. Prof. Klebs and his publisher, Dr 

 Fischer of Jena, have most kindly accorded me permission to 

 publish this translation. A. G. Tansley. 



Although a number of the lower green algae were described in 

 the first half of this century, it was by Kiitzing and Nageli that the 

 foundation of our present knowledge of these forms was laid. 

 Kiitzing described an enormous number of species which he 

 distributed partly into new genera, partly into those which Nageli 

 had with admirable judgment already established. Side by side 

 with the tendency to a thorough-going splitting of species, we find 

 in Kiitzing the belief that lower algae transform themselves into 

 higher forms, even into mess-protonema. Hitherto these poly- 

 morphistic ideas of Kiitzing's have not succeeded in establishing 

 themselves, since they are obviously based on too cursory investiga- 



