306 ON THE GERMINATION OF CHAEA. 



perfectly clear views under the microscope of cross sections of the 

 nodes, by cutting through the pro-embryo with a suitable knife, im- 

 mediately above and below them, and viewing the sections from 

 above and below by reversing the microscope. From a comparison 

 with Pringsheim's faithful representations of actual appearances it 

 will be found that they fully agree with our descriptions ; and the 

 different interpretation he puts upon his observations is due to the 

 fact that some essential phenomena escaped him. 



Kothing need be said here respecting the further development of 

 the plant, as in the main it has long been known. It will^ be 

 necessary, however, in order to complete the sketch of the typical 

 mode of germination in Chara, to recur to the basal cell which 

 occupies the greater part of the cavity of the^ oospore. ^ No other 

 alteration was observed in it than that it remained fixed in the cell, 

 not increasing perceptibly in size, the reserve material gradually dis- 

 appearing, and being replaced by a watery fluid. When the elonga- 

 tion of the pro-embryo is completed, and the growth of the first 

 stem is in progress, it remains together with the shell attached to 

 the base of the germinating plant, in the form of a bladder filled 

 with water and the attenuated remains of its former contents. I did 

 not see any trace of the rotatory corpuscles of protoplasm mentioned 

 by C. H. Schultz,* nor, indeed, did he, but based his assumption on 

 the observation of rotatory protoplasm in the lower cell of the pro- 

 embryo and the erroneous supposition that this was in direct com- 

 munication with the basal cell, and really only the upper part of it. 



The view taken of the phenomena described in the preceding 

 terms requires no special proof, inasmuch as it is essentially the same 

 as the one generally accepted. And what little new there is, is 

 founded upon new facts, and requires no further explanation. The 

 motives for the appellations of the first node seated upon the basal 

 cell and its immediate productions should perhaps be given, especially 

 as they do not coincide with [N'ordstedt's interpretation, or rather 

 manner of expressing it. Node is the term employed to designate 

 the abbreviated portions of Chara stems from which ramification takes 

 its origin, hence the first product of the division of the basal cell 

 requires the same name. True, the first node, as well as the root- 

 node of the pro-embryo, differs in its structure from the stem-node 

 and the successive nodes of the stem. But they resemble each other 

 in one important particular, that is, in the appearance of the primary 

 halving-wall. Both of the cells resulting from this partition undergo 

 further division — irregular in the root- nodes — before ramification 

 begins. The first may at once throw out two branches ; one of which 

 becomes the principal pro embryo, and the other the primary root. 

 Usually, though not always, the outgrowth of the latter is preceded 

 by division at its base ; but with the pro embryo this is never the 

 case. With the divisions at the base of the primary root begin the 

 secondaries of the primary root itself, not of the pro-embryo. When, 

 therefore, Nordstedt calls the base of the primary root the primary 

 root- node of the pro-embryo, he, in my opinion, is wrong, because he 



" Die Natur der lebendigen Pflanze, ii., p. 471. 



