ON THE STRUCTURE AND AFFINITIES OF CHARACE.E. 203 



In all recent systems of cryx^togamic classification the greatest 

 stress is justly laid on the structure of the reproductive organs ; 

 still it is impossible to neglect altogether the characters drawn 

 from the vegetative organs. Indeed the primary classification of 

 the vegetable kingdom into Thallophytes and Cormophytes depends 

 wholly on characters of this kind. Now if we admit any ^Drimary 

 classification of this nature, it is hardly open to doubt that the 

 Characece must be placed distinctly, not in the lower, but in the 

 upper of the two divisions. Lindley, while locating CharacecR 

 among Thallogens, points out that " in them only do we find a 

 symmetrical arrangement even of the divisions of the axis ;" 

 while even in the 4th edition of his ' Lehrbuch/ in which he places 

 Chara among Thallophytes, Sachs still (p. 155) uses this genus 

 as one of his typical illustrations of the formation of " leaves and 

 leaf- forming axes." The more closely we examine the structure 

 of the stem and branches of Chara, the more do we see how widely 

 it diverges from anything that occurs among true Thallophytes ; 

 the stem forming a distinct axis, divided into definite nodes and 

 internodes, and growing by an apical bud. In fact the poly- 

 sjmimetrical arrangement of the branches reminds one much more 

 closely of Phanerogams than of even the highest AlgcB. Even the 

 spurious cortication * of certain FloridecB presents but little analogy 

 to that of Chara. 



The assignment of Characea to the class of Thallophytes which 

 Sachs calls Carpo&porem is hardly more fortunate, and seems to 

 have been chosen mainly because in this class are included all the 

 most higlily-organised Thallophytic forms. While admitting that 

 the philosophic taxonomist will not insist too strongly on the 

 invariability of even the most salient characters for the various 

 groups, it is unfortunate that, in the most prominent characteristic 

 of- the CarposporecE, Cliaracece are almost wholly deficient. This 

 characteristic is thus described by Sachs ('Lehrbuch,' 4th ed., 

 p. 287) : — " The common character of all plants belonging to this 

 class, and that which distinguishes them from the Zygosporem and 

 OosporecB, is the formation of a sporocarp, as the result of the 

 impregnation of the female organ. This sporocarp consists, except 

 in the simplest cases of all, of two essentially difierent parts, a 

 fertile part, the immediate product of the female organ, and which 

 produces eventually either a single or more usually a considerable 

 number of carpospores, and an envelope or pericarp -- * which is 

 not derived directly from the female organ. - * =^ In all cases 

 the consequence of fertilisation is not merely the further develop- 

 ment of a single female cell, as in the Zygosp)orecE, and Oospores, 

 but the setting up of certain processes of growth * * * which 

 results in the production of a body, the sporocarp) or fructification, 

 consisting of a large mass of tissue." The sporocarp of the 

 CarpospurecB is, m fact, strictly analogous to the pseudocarp among 

 Phanerogams, and furnishes its most tyj)ical illustration in the 



* " Unachte Rinde," Cramer, Physiologisch-systematische Untersuchungen 

 liber Cerainiaceen. Zurich, 1863. 



