VAUCHERIA. 6 1 



duction for plants so circumstanced, and thus effectually to 

 guard against the extinction of the species her great care. 

 This she beautifully and securely effects by ordaining that 

 the reproductive bodies should appear at the extremity of the 

 filaments, that is, in a situation where they are least or but 

 little exposed to the impetuosity of the stream or cascade 

 which may roll over them. 



Vaucher remarks of the species as follows : "It is met 

 with in the pure and running waters of fountains and rivulets, 

 and it attaches itself to the wood and stones which there are 

 found, and upon which it forms tufts of a bright green. It 

 appears to be composed of tubes, which are more slender than 

 in the other species, and present likewise a more lustrous ap- 

 pearance ; it is soft and unctuous to the touch ; its extremities, 

 principally in winter, are for the most part terminated with 

 oval and not articulated masses, of which mention is made 

 above. Their powder expands itself easily, especially when 

 one irritates them with a needle ; I have vainly sought for 

 the grains of the plant ; I have never been able to see them, 

 although the species is very common, and I have sought for 

 them for two successive years." 



So far back as 1826, some interesting remarks were made 

 on this plant, or state of one, by M. Frank Unger, which 

 may not be deemed uninteresting. They are taken from 

 Charles worth's " Magazine of Natural History." 



fiC I found," says M. Frank Unger, " near Vienna in a 

 ditch containing some clear water, derived from the recent 

 melting of the snow, a Conferva, which, after cleansing from 

 the clay which surrounded it, I deposited in a wine-glass 

 and placed in a window, where I could observe without dis- 

 turbing it. This was on the 5th of March, 1826. Two days 

 afterwards I noticed the production of a crowd of new ramuli, 

 several lines in height, and rising from the general mass like 

 a fine green miniature sward. On the 9th, these filaments 

 produced fructification in the form of a darker green globule 

 at their summits, by which I knew my plant to be the 

 Conferva dilatata, Cat. Bot. Roth., or the Ectosperma clavata 

 of Vaucher. 



