258 VEGETABLE ORGANOGRAPHY. 



forming transverse passages. A fine green-coloured 

 matter, disposed in a radiated or spiral manner, or in a 

 mass, passes from the cellules of one of the filaments 

 into those of the other ; we then see either this matter 

 collect in each cell into a globule, or, what is more 

 probable, a globule, hitherto imperceptible, enlarges 

 after this (perhaps prolific) operation, and is transformed 

 into an oval body, which comes out of the cell by the 

 rupture of its partitions. This body opens at germina- 

 tion into two valves, and there proceeds from it a 

 filament very like the plant that gave birth to it. It is 

 difficult not to believe that these reproductive bodies 

 are true seeds, and that the green matter performs the 

 part of pollen. This coupling of the filaments is also 

 so remarkable, that, although no one has yet been able 

 to discover any movement in these beings, one would 

 readily be induced to place them in the animal kingdom. 

 The Chan transit, or Polyspermy of Vaucher, present 

 a third mode of fructification. Their internodes slightly 

 swell up at the period of fructification ; and by the 

 destruction of the tissue, a multitude of oval globules 

 comes out of each. Vaucher has seen them shoot out, 

 either by one of their extremities, or more rarely by 

 both, a divided filament resembling the mother plant. 

 This kind of germination sometimes takes place without 

 the globules coming out of the cell ; and it is this that 

 makes me think that the Proliferae of Vaucher do not 

 essentially differ from his Polyspermas. 



These three modes of reproduction are the only ones 

 in which we can perceive an apparatus analogous to a 

 true fructification. In the other genera we only see, 

 it appears to me, a simple division, but which is pre- 

 sented under very different forms. 



Thus, in Hydrodyction, each partial filament, which 

 forms one of the sides of the pentagonal areolae of whicli 



