4 Mr. H. J. Carter on the Development of Gonidia 



amber colour, but leaves the capsule and globular cell un- 

 affected. 



Many globular vesicles of different sizes, which appear to be 

 entirely empty, are also to be observed, and here and there a 

 solitary starch-globule. 



But the composition of the irregular bodies, which appear to 

 vary in size from a minute granule to the largest starch-globule, 

 is not so evident. These bodies, which have a faint yellow opake 

 colour, and apparently granular structure, are like the circular 

 disks loosely scattered through the mucus, or enclosed in plu- 

 rality within transparent globular vesicles otherwise empty, or 

 attached to or imbedded singly, in the wall of one of these cells, 

 which also seems to be their normal appendage. In Chara ver- 

 ticillata (Roxb.) these bodies in the early part of their growth 

 are club-shaped, after which the large end appears to expand 

 into an irregular, globular or agariciform head, to which the 

 small end then forms a kind of pedicel, and thus they are also 

 found within vesicles. At first these irregular bodies look very 

 much like starch-granules, and particularly the agariciform ones, 

 from the eccenti'ic lines on their surface ; but iodine, even when 

 assisted by sulphuric acid, only turns them of a deep brown 

 amber colour like that which it produces in the nucleus of the 

 disk ; sometimes it seems to have little or no effect upon them. 

 They differ from the circular disk in the extreme irregularity of 

 their form, their apparent want of capsule, greater thickness, 

 deeper yellow colour, greater opacity, and in their apparent ori- 

 gin from granules infinitely smaller than the circular disks. 



Axial fluid. — This, as before stated, fills the centre of the in- 

 ternode ; it is of an aqueous consistence, colourless, and fre- 

 quently contains bunches of acicular raphides (oxalate of lime ?), 

 starch- globules, amd many of the faint yellow irregular bodies 

 just mentioned, all of which, except the raphides, appear to have 

 accidentally dropt into it from the mucus-layer. 



Thus we have the internode of Nitella complete, and we have 

 only to conceive the mucus-layer moving round the axial fluid 

 and propelling it and its particles in the same direction (by the 

 projections on its surface), to obtain a true idea of the motion 

 which takes place within the cell of the Characese. 



Let us now follow the passage of the cell-contents into 

 gonidia. 



All are aware, that in the freshwater Algse commonly called 

 Confervse, the formation of the spore is preceded by a breaking 

 up or displacement of the cell- contents, after which a conden- 

 sation and re-arrangement of them takes place, and they are then 

 invested with a capsule which remains entire, until the time 

 arrives for the spore thus formed to germinate. Now, under 



