298 ON THE GEKMINATION OP CIlAltA. 



(extracts anti 3tB«0?tract^. 



ON THE GERMINATION OF CHAR A. 



By A. DE B_AEY. 



{Translated ly W. B. Hemsley, A.L.S.] 

 (Tab. 167, 168.) 



The observations of Yaucher, Kaulfuss, and Bischoff on the ger- 

 mination of the oospores of the Characece, and the impression received 

 from a superficial examination of a young plant of Chara from the 

 oospore, for a long time gave weight to the view that the plant is at 

 once built up by the lengthening and end-growth of the upper ex- 

 tremity of the simple cell which the mature oospore represents, 

 * without any trace of the primary embryo-formation, which is pre- 

 sent in the other cryptogams of higher organisation," as Bischoff 

 remarks with regard to the pro -embryo of mosses and ferns. This 

 conception, according to which the first leaf-bearing shoot of a Chara 

 plant capable of producing fruit, or the first stem, as, for the sake of 

 brevity, it will be designated in the following lines, is the direct 

 result of the longitudinal growth of one end of the oospore-cell, was 

 shown by Pringsheim* to be erroneous, inasmuch as he demonstrated 

 that the first stem does not proceed from an immediate apical out- 

 growth of the cell of the oospore, but from a lateral branch of a 

 primary shoot, the pro-embryo, which issues from the oospore, and of 

 which the longitudinal growth is soon arrested. The structure and 

 growth of this pro-embryo was less studied by Pringsheim in germi- 

 nating plants than in what he terms the pro- embryonic branches, 

 adventitious buds springing under certain conditions from the nodes of 

 older plants of CJiara. But he proved by comparison that the nature 

 and properties of both kinds of pro-embryo are essentially the same, 

 after they are once evolved, and in a similar manner give birth to the 

 lateral primary stem. 



The question how the pro-embryo originates in the oospore was 

 left by Pringsheim unanswered, because his material was insufficient 

 to decide the point. Subsequently the subject has been investigated 

 and explained by O. Nordstedt.f 



Some years ago the author of the present article had an opportu- 

 nity of watching the germination of a number of Characece, and 

 although the deductions may simply be regarded as furnishing a con- 

 firmation of Nordstedt's statements, perhaps their publication may 

 not be inopportune, especially as the Swedish botanist's paper may be 



* •* Jahrb. fiir Wisaenchaft. Botanik," Bd. iii., p. 294, where the older 

 literature of the subject is reviewed. See also Sach's "Lehrbuch," 4th edition, 

 p. 295. 



t "Niigra iakttagelser oiwQx Character nas groning:" Lunda " Univ. Ars" 

 bkrift," torn. ii. 



