296 QUARTERLY CHRONICLE OF MICROSCOPICAL SCIENCE. 



delicate-jointed branching filaments. From the examination 

 of transverse sections it was readily seen that the fihiments 

 passed into the tissues of the Delesseria, penetrating the 

 cuticle, and pressing asunder the subjacent cells, thence 

 finding their way into the intercellular spaces, 



Kny subsequently found similar filaments in the interior 

 of other Floridece, as also in Laminaria saccharina. He 

 discovered no fructification, but the superficial filaments had 

 their parietal protoplasm tinged uniformly with a brownish- 

 yellow colouring material which in the internal filament was 

 granular. He supposed the plant to belong to the Phao- 

 sporecs. 



In Poly ides rotundus Kny found red sterile filaments, 

 which he conjectured to belong to Floridece. — W. Archer. 



II. Fungi. — 1. Ancylistea, a new group of Phy corny cetes. 

 • — Pfitzer has described in great detail the life-history of 

 Ancylistes, a new aquatic parasite, and the type of a new 

 group, in the ' Monatsb. der Akad. der Wiss. zu Berlin,' 

 187.2, p. 379. In August, 1871, he met with examples of 

 Closterium acerosum, Ehr., which appeared to have been to 

 a great extent killed by a parasite. In the spring of the 

 following year he was able to follow out its history. In the 

 interior of living Closteria, between the chlorophyll-plates, 

 were fouud from one to eight extremely slender, delicately 

 bounded cylindical and colourless bodies, of about O'Ol mm. 

 in thickness, permeating the cell from end to end. They 

 appeared to consist of plasma without a cell membrane, but 

 containing minute granules, which moved in various direc- 

 tions but without altering the form of the plasma-mass. 

 Ultimately they acquired a cell-membrane, and were then 

 divided by septa into a number of longish cylindrical celLs. 

 The infected individuals of Closterium at first retained much 

 of their ordinary appearance ; the starch-granules, however, 

 first disappeared, and the death of the host-plant finally 

 ensued on the further development of the parasite. Each of 

 its constituent cells sent out from near one end a short blunt 

 process, which perforating the wall of the Closterium — mostly 

 on the same side — ^projected outwards as so many papillae, 

 which eventually grew out into elongate hyphse, into which 

 by degrees the plasma passed. The hyphse were found, by 

 actual measurement, to exhibit an apical growth of *01 mm. 

 in a minute ; very rarely they became branched. 



As soon as a hypha came in contact with a neigh- 

 bouring Closterium its apex became enlarged and firmly 

 attached. The plasma passed up into the enlarged apex, 

 which was once more . cat oft' by a septum from the 



