THE ANNALS 



AND 



MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



[THIRD SERIES.] 

 No. 59. NOVEMBER 18G2. 



XXXIII. — On the Pro-Embryos of the Charge. 

 By M. Pringsheim*. 



It is generally supposed by the numerous observers of the 

 germination of the Char a, that their spores produce the plants 

 immediately in germination. 



This assertion is expressed most distinctly by BischofF in his 

 monographic treatise on the Char a. After some brief remarks 

 upon the direction of the germinating plant, dependent on the 

 accidental position of the spore, Bischoff saysf, " In any case, 

 however, it is clear that in the Charce an immediate development 

 of the germ-plant from the spore takes place, without any trace 

 of a primitive germinal structure, such as occurs in the other 

 Cryptogamia of the higher orders ; and even by this the position 

 of these plants upon the boundaries of the two primary divisions 

 of the vegetable kingdom is attested." 



Certainly every one who has observed germinating Chara will 

 admit that this assertion is perfectly in accordance with the first 

 and direct impression which germinating Chara produce upon 

 the observer, and has evidently misled all the more recent 

 observers of the germination ; for they differ in nothing from 

 Bischoff in their conception of the structure produced from the 

 spore. 



Nevertheless this conception is false; and it is certain that 

 the germinating spore does not directly give origin to the young- 

 plant, but that in the Chara, as in the higher Cryptogamia, a 

 pro-embryo is first formed in the germination, and upon this 

 the first branches of the plant are subsequently formed by a 

 normal process of gemmation. The proof of this assertion de- 



* Translated by W. S. Dallas, F.L.S., from the Monatsbcricht derAkad. 

 der Wiss. zu Berlin, April 1862, p. 225. 

 f G. W. Bischoff, 'Die Cryptogamischen Gewachse,' 1828, p. 10. 



Ann. §■ Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 3. Vol. x. 22 



