STRUCTURE.] ALGALS. 123 



6. Pseudoperithecium ;} terms used by Fries to express sucli 



7. Pseudohymenium ; > coverings of spores as resemble 



8. Pseudoperidium ; } in figure the parts named peri- 



thecium, hymenium, and peridium in other plants : see 

 those terms. 



9. Sporidia ; granules which resemble spores, but which 

 are of a doubtful nature. It is in this sense that Fries 

 declares that he uses the word : vide Plant, homonom. 

 p. 294. They are also called Sports. 



10. Phycomater, Fries; the gelatine in which the spores of 

 Byssacese first vegetate. 



11. Vesicula ; inflations of the thallus, filled with air, by 

 means of which the plants are enabled to float. 



12. Hypha, Willd. ; the filamentous, fleshy, watery thallus of 



Byssacese. 



13. Sporangia; any kind of case not obviously a joint of the 

 plant, within which spores are generated. 



14. Coniocysta ; tubercle-like closed apothecia, containing a 

 mass of spores ; the same as sporangium. 



Dr. Harvey thus describes their reproductive organs, 

 (British Alg<R y xx.) 



" In fructification we find many modifications of structure, 

 without much real difference either in the manner in which 

 the fruit is perfected, or in the seed that is produced. The 

 seed that is finally formed in all the tribes of genuine Algae, 

 from which I exclude the Diatomacea3, appears pretty nearly 

 to agree in structure, and to consist of a single cellule or bag 

 of membrane, filled with a very dense and dark coloured 

 granular or semifluid mass, called the endochrome. This 

 seed on germination produces a perfect plant, resembling 

 that from which it sprung. Nothing at all resembling floral 

 organs has been noticed in any, and all that we know of the 

 fructification is, that it takes place with regularity, arising 

 from the same parts of the frond, and having the same ap- 

 pearance in plants of the same kind. Its growth may be 

 watched from the commencement, when, what we may call 

 the ovule, or germ of the future seed, begins to swell. But 

 nothing whatever has been ascertained that throws the 

 smallest light on the process of fecundation. In some 



