BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 21 



a smaller cell known as a capitulum. The capitula end in turn in 

 six secondary capitula from each of which grow four long flagelliform 

 threads which are composed of small disc-shaped cells. The anlhe- 

 rozoids are borne singly in the cells. When free from the cell the an- 

 therozoid is a spirally twisted, naked, protoplasmic body, many times 

 longer than broad, and is capable of a very rapid motion by means of 

 two cilia which are placed near one end. 



Sporangia (jiuciiles) : — These are the female organs and when ma- 

 ture are usually of an ovoid shape, and .30 to i.io mm. in length. 

 The sporangium consists of a large central cell, the spore and five 

 tubes which are coiled closely around it. The sporangium is a trans- 

 formed leaflet. 



Non-sexual organs of reproduction- : — Bulblets are found in a number 

 of species; they occur most frequently at the lower nodes of the plant 

 near the surface of the ground, where few or no leaves are developed 

 and the internodes are colorless. 



A second method of non-sexual reproduction is found in Cliara 

 fragilis, which is called by Pringsheim "Branches with naked base." 



Classification: — It is difficult to place the Characeae very close to 

 any other group of Cryptogams. Their method of development, sex- 

 ual organs, and anatomical structure separate them from the Vascular 

 Cryptogams on the one side, and the Thallophytes on the other ; and 

 bring them nearer to the Muscineie than to any other general group. 

 Of the Muscinea? they bear the most resemblance to mosses. Differ- 

 ing as they do widely, even from the mosses, in being less complex 

 in structure and in the development of the fruit, it seems fi'ting that 

 the Characeje be placed iii a group by themselves and arranged with the 

 others in the following order, proceeding from the highest to the lowest : 

 Vascular Cryptogams, Muscinece. Characar, and Thallophytes. 



Saporta's World OF Plants.— In the Popular Science Monthly 

 for February is a review of Count de Saporta's work translated from 

 Revue Scientifique by Miss E. A. Youmans. The general bearing of 

 the work is well shown by the reviewer's preface. "Men of science, 

 whose patient researches have accumulated the proofs of the theory of 

 evolution, have perha[)s found more facts in support of this great phi- 

 losophical doctrine in the vegetable than in the animal world. When 

 we say the vegetable world, we of course mean chiefly fossil vegeta- 

 bles. It is only by the study of extinct forms, and their comparison 

 with the living flora, that the affinities between actual types and distant 

 ancestors have been discovered, and their mode of evolution revealed. 

 Vegetable paleontology, it is true, is yet in its infancy, and has many 

 great gaps; still, the rapidity with which it is being developed, and 

 the prodigious number of facts that have been already collected, give 

 good ground for the hope that the day is not far distant when we shall 

 have surely determined the ancestral lines of most of our plants. To 

 this the efforts of paleontologists are tending, and their activity is be- 

 yond all praise. During the last twenty years their discoveries have 

 furnished the matter for large volumes and for many memoirs, pub- 



