g ALGALS. 



Alliance I. ALG ALES.— Tire Algal Alliance. 



„ c ,,,001 . nr m Tr * 1 (1815) • Aqardh Synops. Alg. (1817) ; Species Alg. (1821- 

 Alg*. J,u,. Hen 5. (1788) ; .^ «• £ r - - 2 ^> , (i y 30 ) ; //oofer, UWt KTwJ. 2. pi. 1. (1833) ; ^ard* 



1 1 =?,., ? fiS, . j„„ 3«Se 13 439. (1828).-Chaodine*, Conferva and Ceramia- 



r.Svc." iAv.S^. Orft. r V .320. U825>.-Nema«*atas, GaUlon t» Ann. Sc. Ser. 2. 1.44. 

 (18S41 ; IMivcOts, Bfont Met t"'t»f. dV/wf. iV. fub. ^^ts (1843). 



Diagnosis —Cellular flowerless plants, nourished through their whole surf ace by the medium 

 in >i vegetate ; li ring in water or very damp places ; propagated by zoospores, 



colour, d sporet, or letraspores. 

 It is hen that the transition from animals to plants, whatever its true nature may be, 

 occurs ; for it is incontestable, as the varying statements of original observers testify, 

 that no man can certainly Bay whether many of the organic bodies placed here belong 

 t<> the one kingdom of nature or the other. Whatever errors of observation may have 

 occurred, those very errors, to say nothing of the true ones, show the extreme diffi- 

 cult v. not to sav impossibility, of pointing out the exact frontier of either kingdom. If 

 those ambiguous marine productions, which Pallas considered to be plants, but which 

 Lamarck and much later writers have mostly placed among Zoophytes, have been 

 shown by Kutzing and Decaisne to be merely sea-vegetables coated with calcareous 

 matter, we have in that fact another testimony to the near approach of the two realms 

 being through the Algal alliance. Indeed, if any faith is to he placed in the observations 

 of Kutzing and Hornschuch, the one is capable of giving birth to the other. The 

 former of these writers mentions {Ann. Sc.Nat. 2. ser. 5. 376) a very extraordinary fact, 

 if it he one. He cut to pieces the marine animal called Medusa aurita, washed the 

 pieces carefaU] in distilled water, put them into a bottle of distilled water, corked it 

 close, and placed it in a window facing the east. The bits of Medusa soon decomposed, 

 and emitted a very offensive odour, during which time no trace of Infusoria was dis- 

 coverable. After a few days the putrid smell disappeared, and myriads of Monads 

 came forth. Shortly alter' the surface of the liquid swarmed with extremely small 

 green points, which eventually covered the whole surface; similar points attached 

 themselves to the sides of the bottle; seen under a microscope they appeared to be 

 formed of numberless Monads, united by a slimy mass ; and at last, after some weeks, 

 tin- Conferva fhgaciBBuna of Lyngbye developed itself in perfection. 



Reissek, of Vienna, goes still further. He professes to have observed the green 

 colouring matter of ordinary flowering plants metamorphosed into confervae ; such 

 forms were even w itnessed by him proceeding from the pollen cells of plants {Bot. Zeit. 

 1844. July 1)'). Kutzing also believes that the lower forms of Algals are capable of 

 being changed into more highly organised species, or even into species belonging to 

 different families of the higher cellular plants. With regard to these astounding state- 

 ments I cannot do better than avail myself of the excellent remarks of the Rev. M. J. 

 Berkeley, than whom no one has a more intimate knowledge of the subject in question. 

 In Taylor's Annals of Natural History, vol. xiv. p. 434, he observes, ''that such obser- 

 vations cannot be considered conclusive, apart from all prejudice either way, till a 

 certain number of bodies ascertained to be precisely of the same nature be isolated, and 

 tie changes of these observed with every possible precaution to avoid error. At present 

 ins that there is not by any means sufficient proof that the objects in questioii 

 really arise from germs of the same nature. The second remark we would make is, 

 that there appears too often in treatises of this description to be great indistinctness as 

 to the notion of what a species really is. We know that in the course of development 

 higher bodies go through a vast variety of phases which resemble very closely true 

 substantia] species which have arrived at their full development ; but we "are not there- 

 fore to suppose, that in passing through their phases the production has really consisted 

 of such a number of real species. In the sense of Agardh this may be true enough ; 

 for when he pronounces the vessels and cells of phamogamous plants to be Algce, his 

 sing appears to be, however Btrongly he expresses himself, merely that they are 

 representatives of Algae, and resemble them in structure. 



" We would remark, also, that the real difficulty of the case does not depend on the 

 question as to the difference of animal and vegetable life. These evidently in certain 

 parts of the creation are so intimately combined, that it is quite impossible to say where 

 the one ei ases and the other begins ; and there is really no reason why we should be 



