ME. BEEKELEY ON THE MICEOGONLDIA OF EBESHWATEE ALG.E. 145 



We also made a comparative trial with opium powder, and 

 obtained a decided red with a spirituous solution on the addition 

 of strong nitric acid (No. 2). Our manipulation then, in this 

 case, is not at fault. 



Of course, no more weight is to be attached to such a rough 

 chemical examination than it deserves, but it is at least sug- 

 gestive. 



Mould destroys the virtue of many drugs, and why not of opium ? 

 We ought to have had a portion of the opium from the cakes to 

 which the two specimens of shell belonged. 



M. J. Beekeley. 



The lewah would naturally be deficient in meconic acid and 

 morphia compared with good opium ; but not probably so deficient 

 as in the shell after moulds have grown upon it. 



Note on the Recent Discoveries in relation to the Microgonidia of 

 Freshwater Algm. By the Eev. M. J. Beekeley, F.L.S. &c. 



[Read April 1st, 1856.] 



Amongst other points in the physiology of Algae, on which so 

 much light has been thrown by the beautiful observations of 

 Pringsheim, the functions of the little organs which Braun has 

 discovered in very different groups of freshwater Algce, and to 

 which he has given the name of microgonidia, have not been neg- 

 lected. These bodies, which scarcely exceed -g-^-oth of an inch in 

 length, and are often not half that size, are clavate above and 

 strongly attenuated below. They are either unicellular or divided 

 by one or two septa, and occur in little groups or separately on or 

 in the neighbourhood of the large spores. They soon attain their 

 full development, and open by means of a little lid at their apex, 

 through which their contents are rapidly evacuated. Pringsheim has 

 observed in CEdogonium (Vesiculifera, Hass.) and Bulbochcete, that 

 when the contents of the swollen joints in which the spores origin- 

 ate have been concentrated, a round lateral aperture in the former, 

 and one or more circular fissures in the latter are formed, by means 

 of which they are exposed to the entrance of minute bodies from 

 without. As the microgonidia burst at the same time with the 

 formation of these apertures, Pringsheim conjectures with great 

 probability that they perform the same functions as the horn-like 



LINN. PEOC. — BOTANY. L 



