ci 



THE GENERAL DEVELOPMENT OF PLANTS, 



ramified cell, intricately interlaced or compacted, and forming dense 

 masses of considerable size and of definite shapes. 



83 a 90 



6\J) 



104. While in these cases the ramifications of the cell imitate, oi 

 as it were foreshadow, the stem and branches of higher organized 

 plants, we have in Botrydium (Fig. 88) a cell whose ramifications' 

 resemble and perform the functions of a root. This consists of an 

 enlarged cell, which elongates and ramifies downwards, the slender 

 branches penetrating the loose and damp soil on which the plant grows, 

 exactly in the manner of a subdivided root. Meanwhile, a crop of 

 spores or rudimentary new cells is produced, by original cell-forma- 

 tion (29), in the liquid contents of the mother-cell: these, escaping 

 when that decays or bursts, grow into similar plants, in the manner 

 shown by Fig. 86, 87. The spores by which Vaucheria is propagated 

 originate in a somewhat different way. When about to fructify, the 

 apex of a branch enlarges, its green contents thicken, separate from 

 those below, condense into a rounded mass, which acquires a coat of 

 protoplasm (Fig. 89, a) : the sac in which it was formed soon bursts 

 open, and the new-born spore escapes into the water (Fig. 90). It 

 moves about freely for some hours (678), when a coat of cellulose is 

 formed upon its surface, converting it into a true cell, which soon 



FIG 85-87. Botrydium Wallrothii in its development, and with new cells forming within ; 

 after Kutzing: 85. the cell still spherical: 86, pointing into a tube below: 87, the tube pro. 

 longed and branched : all much magnified. 



b'lG 88 Botrydium argilUiceum, after Endlicher ; the full-grown plant, magnified 



FIG 89 Vaucheiia clavata, enlarged; o, a spore formed in the enlarged apex of that 

 branch 90 End of the branch, more magnified, with the spore escaped from the burst apex. 



FIG. 91. Brjopsis plumosa ; sumir.it cf a stem with its brar.chlets, much enlarged. 



