502 



CRYPTOGAMOUS OR FLOWERLES PLANTS. 



&c. ; or else, like the Blight and Rust in grain, and the Muscar- 

 dine so destructive to silkworms, it attacks and spreads throughout 

 living tissues, often producing great havoc before its fructification 

 is revealed at the surface. Sometimes the 

 last cells of the stalks swell into a vesicle, 

 in which the minute sporules are formed ; 

 as in Fig. 74. Sometimes the branching 

 stalks bear single sporules, like a bunch of 

 grapes (Fig. 76), or long series of cells, or 

 sporules, in rows, like the beads of a neck- 

 lace (Fig. 75), which, falling in pieces, are 

 the rudiments of new plants. 



945. Ord, Characeae, The Chara Family 

 consists of a few aquatic plants, which have 

 all the simplicity of the lower Algae in their 

 cellular structure, being composed of sim- 

 ple tubular cells placed end to end, and of- 

 ten with a set of smaller tubes applied to the 

 surface of the main one (Fig. 1186). Hence 

 they have been placed among Algae. But 

 their fructification is of a higher order. It 

 consists of two kinds of bodies (both shown 

 in Fig. 1186), of which the smaller (and 

 lower) is probably a mass of antheridia 



of curious structure, while the upper and larger is a sporocarp, 

 formed of a budding cluster of leaves wrapped around a nucleus, 

 which is a spore or sporangium. The order should have been in- 

 troduced between the Equisetaceae (to which the verticillate branch- 

 es show some analogy) and the Hydropterides, which they some- 

 what resemble in fructification. They are, of all plants, those in 

 which the rotary movement of the contents of the cells (36, which 

 has been called Cyclosis) may be most readily observed. 



946. Ord, AlgBC (Seaweeds). This vast order, or rather class, 

 consists of aquatic plants ; for the most part strictly so, but some 

 grow in humid terrestrial situations. The highest forms are the 

 proper Seaweeds ( Wrack, Tang, Dulse, Tangle, &c.) ; " some of 

 which have stems exceeding in length (although not in diameter) 



FIG. 1185. Branch of the common Chara, nearly the natural size. 1186. A portion magni- 

 fied, showing the lateral tubes inclosing a large central one (a portion more magnified at 1187) ; 

 also a spore, invested by a set of tubes twisted spirally around it ; and with an antheridium 

 borne at its base. 



