UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PUBLICATIONS 



IN 



BOTANY 



Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 35-40, plate 7 Issued April 11, 1914 



PHYTOMORULA REGULARIS, A SYMMETRICAL 

 PROTOPHYTE RELATED TO COELASTRUM 



BY 



CITAELES ATWOOD KOFOID 



A protophyte with a eoenobium of exceptional re^larity and 

 remarkable resemblance to a lenticular egg with equal cleavage, in a 

 sixteen-cell stage, was discovered in a local reservoir in Berkeley in 

 March, 1912. This reservoir is mainly used for pressure, receiving 

 from time to time some water pumped from the alluvial fan at Xiles, 

 California, but mainly fed at this season of the year by creek and 

 spring water from the Berkeley Hills. Its plankton contains only 

 species normal to the season and to clear, spring-fed waters of lirief 

 impounding. It is composed principally of Anuraea cochlearis, A. 

 tecta, A. aculeata, with a few Daphnia hyalina, and Diaptomus Bakeri. 

 It was remarkably free from phytoplankton this year, having only a 

 few Synedm, Fediastrum boryanum, Scenedesmus quadricauda. S. 

 curvatus and S. ohliquus, some small spheroidal forms resembling the 

 smallest phases of Sphaerocystis Schroeteri, a species which is abundant 

 in the summer, a few Volvo.r, sp., and numerous minute flagellates. 

 In comparison witli other standing or spring-fed waters in this season 

 of the year the water of this reservoir is exceptionally free from 

 phytoplankton. Its cement bottom and walls bear a slight coating, 

 largely of diatoms wiiicii the wiiul ;iii(l bubbles of oxygen tend to 

 strew fliidugh the open water, l)ut the accessions from this source to 

 the plankton are slight. During the past twelve years in which I have 

 inspected the mici-oscopic life of many fresh waters in Califoi'uia. tlio 

 organism here described has never been seen elsewhere, and it is at the 

 most very rare where it was discovered. 



