Ixiv THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



enabled him to confirm Schimper's observations as far as 

 they went, whilst they also supply us with much new 

 and highly interesting information. These ' confervoid fila- 

 ments,' Dr. Hicks ^ tells us, ' consist of a single series of 

 cells, of a length varying according to outward conditions^, 

 each cell possessing the property of producing branches like 

 themselves. They are in the first instance produced by the 

 germination of a spore, as has been pointed out by the ob- 

 servers above quoted; and although, as Schimper has beau- 

 tifully shown, the ascending axis arises from them, yet this 

 axis and the leaves in their turn give rise to the filaments, as 

 Kiitzing and Schimper also have pointed out, and which can 

 be readily verified. . . . When the filament springs from 

 either the axis or leaf, or from a single unsegmented goni- 

 dium, the first change in the cell (for in either case only one 

 cell is involved) is a bulging-out of a portion of its wall, 

 which, after growing a certain length, is shut off from the 

 original cell by a septum at the point of origin. After this 

 cell has grown a certain length, a binary subdivision of its 

 contents takes place. ... By the continuation of this process, 

 chiefly in the terminal cell, and by the growth in the already 

 formed cells, and by the formation of branches from branches 

 continuously, the length of the filaments and the area they 

 occupy are extended indefinitely.' The character of the 

 cell-contents varies very much in different cases, and the 

 filaments may take on a well-marked arborescent form, or 

 they may remain, for a period, almost unbranched. Dr. Hicks 

 tells us : — ' In these forms the confervoid radicles continue to 

 grow for an indefinite time, external circumstances remaining 

 the same ; and in course of time very large surfaces can be 



^ ' Trans, of Linnsean Soc.,' 1862, vol. xxiii. p. 570. 



^ Sometimes their length scarcely equals their breadth ; but at other 

 times, ' under much moisture and heat, it is very much increased, so that 

 it may be twenty or thirty times longer than wide.' 



