Howe: PuHycoLoGIcAL stTuDIES 505 
water earlier in the day, our attention was arrested by one plant 
of Avrainvillea nigricans, the surface of which was rather abun- 
dantly covered with protruding capitate or subclavate filaments. 
Remembering that “ Fortpflanzungsorgane unbekannt” * was the 
most that had been said of the mode of reproduction in this genus 
Avrainvillea, which had been recognized since 1842, we proceeded 
to examine the newly found structures with much interest. The 
enlarged terminal portions of these filaments varied in form from 
clavate and fusiform to pyriform or subglobose and they had the 
appearance of being stipitate, being raised above the general sur- 
face once or twice their own length by a scarcely modified part of 
the filament. The younger and smaller as well as some of the 
larger of these peculiar bodies were intensely green, contrasting 
notably with the dingy-fuscous tint of the plant in general, but 
many of the older and larger had turned brown, the color residing 
partly in the filament wall and partly in the contents and being 
evidently an intensification of the color characteristic of the ordi- 
nary vegetative condition of the species. After a microscopic 
€xamination, the plant was placed in a jar of seawater with the 
hope that on the following morning living zodspores might be seen 
toemerge from the suspected sporangia. But our hopes were 
disappointed. Then, as on the previous evening, many of the 
Supposed sporangia contained usually from three to five (one to 
eight) ovoid, pyriform, elongate-ellipsoidal, or difform bodies, 
°ccupying together one-half or more of the cavity of the enlarge- 
ment. Impressed by the evident lack of homology with what 
little is known of reproduction in other members of the Codzaceae, 
We suspected that these peculiar interior bodies might be endo- 
phytic parasites of some sort and that the sporangium-like swell- 
ings might be simply galls caused by their presence, and so, with 
the conviction that the Avrainvillea was by this time dead, we 
added formalin to the seawater to preserve the interesting speci- 
men for further study at some more convenient time. Subsequent 
investigations have succeeded in bringing to light practically all 
Stages in the development of the sporangium-like organs, includ- 
ing great numbers of withered and empty ones, and nothing has 
N discovered to indicate that the more or less spore-like bodies 
* Wille ; Engler & Prantl, 1 Nat. Pflansenfam, 22: 141. 1890. 
