1899] BRITISH BOTANY 163 
from Egypt with rice. It is suggested that its presence near Manchester 
is due to an introduction of the seeds along with Egyptian cotton, and 
this view is supported by the fact that the Manchester plant resembles 
Egyptian specimens in a certain anatomical detail of the leaf-structure. 
The new Alga was growing attached to the stem and leaves of the 
Najas, and may have been similarly introduced; but, so far, the genus 
Pithophora has not been recorded from North Africa. 
Polemics and a Parasite. 
THE Zoologischer Anzeiger for July 3 contains an article by Professor 
W. M. Wheeler entitled “J. Beard on the Sexual Phases of Myzostoma” 
(pp. 281-288), which is a fine example of polemical discussion. 
We all like a fair fight, even if we won’t admit it; and perhaps these 
zoological tilts are like the combats of male spiders in this, that neither 
party is wounded. Wheeler criticised Beard, and Beard criticised 
Wheeler, and the bystanders were edified; and we cannot but say 
that the edification continues as Wheeler returns to the charge. Our 
only doubt is as to the wisdom of using words that have a moral 
connotation, words like “garble” and “ misrepresent,’ which we see 
in the paper before us. A more philosophic note is struck when Mr. 
Wheeler expresses the hope that “continued controversy may induce 
some student (we omit the adjective conscientious) who has an op- 
portunity of working at the Naples Station or at the French or 
Japanese sea-side laboratories, to undertake a renewed study of the 
reproductive organs of the various species of Myzostoma.” 
But what is the dispute about? Beard holds that MZ glabrum is 
dimorphic, the species being represented by hermaphrodite individuals 
and by dwarf complemental males. The latter are dorsicolous, that is, 
they are attached to the dorsal surface of the large hermaphrodite 
individuals which in turn adhere to the peristome of Antedon rosacea. 
From a comparative study of several species representing the 
morphological extremes of the genus Myzostoma, Wheeler concluded 
that JZ. glabrum is monomorphic, each individual being from the first 
hermaphrodite, 7.2. possessing both ovaries and testes, and being like 
other members of the genus (notably IL cirriferuwm and M. alatum) 
protandrous, then hermaphrodite, and ultimately more or less hystero- 
gynic. “In other words, the functional male phase (Beard’s com- 
plemental male) passes into the functional hermaphrodite phase as 
soon as the first ova mature, and the functional female phase begins 
with the atrophy or disappearance of the testes. The cysticolous and 
endoparasitic species of the genus tend towards a condition in which 
the functional male and female phases overlap but little, thus exhibiting 
only a brief functional hermaphrodite phase (JZ eremite), or these 
