76 



be no longer in the Paris Museum. As it would have been of great 



interest to have them for comparison I wrote to M. P. Hariot 



in Paris about this matter but got 

 the answer that the specimens were 

 not in the Paris Museum. Most 

 fortunately we have a very good 

 figure by Quoi et Gaimard (1. c.) 

 and this seems to me to be in good 

 accordance with mv specimens 

 (Fig. 61). 



The plant reaches a height of 

 about 2 — 3 cms. : the stalk is rather 

 rigid and calcified ; on the upper- 

 most halfpart, sometimes even 

 lower, it has spindle-shaped swel- 

 lings bearing on their thickest part 

 a whorl of hair-scars after deci- 

 duous assimilation-hairs, in accord- 

 ance with the figure of Quoi et 

 Gaimard (1. c.) and as figured by 

 Harvey (1. c.) and mentioned by 

 SoLMS (1. c). By means of a rami- 

 fied, lobed rhi- 

 zome the stalk is 



at the base fastened to limestones or shells. As 



pointed out by De Bary and Strasburger^) 



for Acetahularia mediterranea, this rhizoidlike 



base penetrates into the substratum most pro- 

 bably by decomposition of the latter and it is 



therefore so strongly connected with it that one 



always only gets the uppermost part of the 



rhizome when trying to tear the plant free. Only 



by loosening a small piece of the stone on which 



the plant is growing and afterwards dissolving 



the stone bv means of acid we get the base of the Fig.jo2. Acetctbularia 



. - , T-.- r.-> 1 1 • • Cahculus Quoi et 



plant mtact. As the rig. 62 shows this is an Gaimard. Base of 



irregularly lobed body ; it has a large contrac- ^^^ P^oVh 

 tion almost in the middle so it is quite in accor- 

 dance with the description of De Bary and Strasburger of the 

 base of A. mediterranea which has below the contraction what 



Fig. 61. Acetahularia Caliculus 

 Quoi et Gaimard (about 3:1). 



') De Bary, A., and E. Strasburger, Acetahularia mediterranea. Bot. 

 Zeit. 1877. 



