12 H. C. BOLD 



For example, who among us can, with authority or even with 

 reasonable assurance, define the generic and specific limits in such 

 series of organisms as (i) Chlorococcum, Cystococcus, Hypnomo- 

 nas, Chlorosphaera and Trochiscia; (2) Chlamydomonas, Gloe- 

 ocystis, Gloeococcus, Palmella, Sphaerellopsis and Sphaerocystis? 

 One of my students, Mr. Richard Starr, has now been engaged 

 for a year and a half in studying some seventy-five isolates of 

 "Chlorococcum-like" algae. The literature on these forms con- 

 tains numerous incomplete, fragmentary descriptions which offer 

 few really useful taxonomic criteria. True understanding, classi- 

 fication and identification of such cultures is not achieved by per- 

 cursory examination, such as might suffice for some of the higher 

 algae. More than thirty years ago Brunnthaler (1915) empha- 

 sized this when he wrote of Chlorococcum, and I translate: "The 

 genus is entirely unnatural; only a few species are known accu- 

 rately to any degree. Most species probably do not belong here 

 and instead may be stages of other algae. It is possible only by 

 cultural studies to establish the membership of a plant in this 

 genus." How many "new" or previously "undescribed" species 

 of unicellular and colonial forms have been "described" since 

 these words were written, with the diagnoses based on chance 

 collections or on observations of material studied in a mixture of 

 other algae, without continuous observation of the various mor- 

 phological manifestations evoked by changing environmental 

 conditions! The author, himself, has not been without blame in 

 this respect. In a relatively recent issue of a familiar journal a 

 "new species" of a Polyblepharid is described by another phycol- 

 ogist. The illustration of the type depicts a somewhat inverted 

 conical cell, neatly and uniformly stippled except for a sugges- 

 tion of a pyrenoid, and with the proper number of flagella charac- 

 teristic of the genus, but otherwise devoid of such morphological 

 details as stigma, contractile vacuoles and nucleus, omissions 

 which are not supplemented in the text. 



It is often argued in some quarters that preparation of her- 

 barium specimens properly labeled and deposited in suitable 

 herbaria, would form a firmer basis for such work. Whereas none 

 of us would deny the importance of herbarium specimens, espe- 



