174 CONJUGATED. 



of the filaments, I felt satisfied that its proper place was 

 with the Conjugates, and referred it to Mougeotia. This 

 reference did not, in all respects, seem satisfactory, for while 

 the true species of Mougeotia are almost constantly found 

 united, C. ericetorum is very rarely met with in that con- 

 dition. So rarely, indeed, as to make it apparent that the 

 species is reproduced independent of any union of the fila- 

 ments. The habit of C. ericetorum was so different from 

 that of the true Mougeotia, being more that of a Scytonema, 

 that I had determined to place it in a genus by itself ; a step 

 which, on looking over Kiitzing's " Phycologia Generalis," 

 I found to have been already taken. Kiitzing thus accu- 

 rately defines the genus : 



" Trichomata simplicia vel subramosa, parenchymatica 

 hologonimica, primum viridis, deinde purpurascens ; cellulaB 

 cartilagineae, crispa?, interdum didyma3 ; spermata nunc in 

 trabeculis, nunc lateralia, globosa." 



1. ZYGOGONIUM ERICETORUM Kutz. 

 Plate XLL Figs. I, 2. 



Char. Filaments not unfrequently branched. Cells usually 

 about twice as long as broad, rarely uniting, but frequently 

 emitting elongated and irregular processes, wltich are usually 

 to be regarded as rudimentary ramuli. Endochrome oc- 

 casionally becoming effused, generally from one cell into 

 an adjoining one in the same ^filament, but sometimes that 

 from both cells passes into a space formed between the two 

 utricles. 



C. ericetorum Harv. in Hook. Brit. Flora, also in Manual, 

 p. 125. ; E. Bot. t. 1553. ; Grev. Crypt, t. 261. f. 1. 



It has elsewhere been stated that I had been induced, 

 from the detection of ramuli on some of the filaments, to 

 consider Conferva ericetorum as referrible to the branched 

 Conferva. It would appear, however, on closer examination, 

 that while it certainly, by the not unfrequent occurrence of 

 ramuli, exhibits a degree of relation to those species, yet that 

 its affinities with the conjugating tribe are sufficiently strong 



