A Monograph of the Genus Alaria, 29 



often misleading.^) Kjellman^) once identified a plant from Alaska 

 with A. lanceolata Kjellm. on account of the largeness and abun- 

 dance of " the tufts of long cryptostomata," though in all other 

 characters it appears to me to be referrable to A. dolichorhaclns 



K.JELLM. 



Various opinions regarding the nature and function of crypto- 

 stomata have bean expressed by different botanists. The opinions, 

 however, have been within the limit of the Fucaceous crypto- 

 stomata and did not take into consideration similar organs of the 

 other families. When the tufts of hairs found in Encœliacese and 

 Laminariacese are equally treated as cryptostomata, the nature and 

 function of the organ become still more inexplicable. ISIuekay^) 

 says : — " A comparison of the Fucaceous conceptacle and crypto- 

 storna, the Splachmdlum conceptacle with its persistent initial cell 

 and the formation of its hairs yielding place to sporangia, the 

 development of the Adenocystis cryptostoma in the heart of its 

 sorus, the other Laminarian cryptostoma {Saccorhiza and Alarla) 

 apart from the sorus, the cryptostoma of Ilydroclathnis among its 

 plurilocular sporangia, and finally the cases of the hairs in Aspero- 

 coccus and the Cutleriaceœ and Dictyotaceœ — a comparison of these 

 cases, and of the evidence plainly furnished by them, points very 

 significantly to a possible origin of cryptostomata." 



The development of cryptostomata is now much clearer than 

 at the time when Mueeay's work was published. For the full 

 knowledge on the behavior and further development of the " initial 

 cell " in the conceptacle and cryptostomata of Sargasium fiUpendida 

 we owe to Miss SnioNs' excellent paper. ^) Her paper largely con- 



1) WuiLE : Beiträge z. physiol. Anfit. Lamin., p. 37. 



2) Saundees : Harriman Alaska Exped , Algae, p. 426. 



3) MuKEAY : Phycological Memoirs, X, p. 63. 



4) Simons : Morph. Study of 6'. filipendula. 



