44 Excerpta Botanica. 



VIT.— Excerpta Botanica, or abridged Extracts translated 

 from the Foreign Journals, illustrative of, or connected ivith, 

 the Botany of Great Britain. By W. A. Leighton, Esq., 

 B.A., F.B.S.E., &c. 



No. 5. On the Anther of Chara vulgaris and Chara hispida, 

 and the Animalcules contained in it. By M. Gustavus 

 Thuret. (Ann. des Sc. Nat. vol. xiv. p. 65.) 



In the axillae of the branches of Chara, immediately below 

 the carpels, are globular sessile bodies, of a vivid red colour, 

 which, entirely disappearing on the approaching maturity of 

 the carpels, are conjectured to perform the functions of sta- 

 mens, although in other respects they possess no analogy of 

 organization with the male organs of Phanerogamae. The 

 outer covering of these consists of a membrane formed of 

 transparent cellules, which produce the appearance of a white 

 ring encircling the anther. Under this membrane are irregu- 

 lar oval cellules arranged into triangular valves, each valve 

 being composed of fi'om twelve to twenty cellules radiating 

 from a common centre, and enclosing the red granules which 

 produce the brilliant colour of the anther. On the full deve- 

 loijment of the anther these valves disunite, and permit the bo- 

 dies enclosed in their interiors to expand in the water. Those 

 anthers most remote from the central axis always open first, 

 and those on the lower whorls before those on the upper ones. 

 The interior of the anther is filled with flexuose, transparent, 

 chambered {cloisonnees) filaments, of unequal length, ema- 

 nating chiefly from a central cellular base, from which also 

 radiate a few ovoid utricuks, containing orange-coloured gra- 

 nules. Each of these utricules adheres to the cellular base 

 by its narrowest extremity, and is fixed perpendicularly by 

 its largest extremity to the centre of one of the triangular 

 valves. The contained granules are oval, orange-coloured, 

 and arranged in a linear series ; whilst, on the contrary, in the 

 cellules of the valves the granules are round, red, scattered 

 without order, and distant from the walls of the cellules. 



In these chambered filaments the animalcules are produced. 

 These filaments, when examined in a veiy young state, appear 

 only as oval utricules enclosing a granular matter, some of them 

 being detached, but the greater number adherent to the cel- 

 lular base before mentioned. A little later these utricules be- 

 come chambered, a nucleus appearing in each chamber or di- 

 vision. The introduction of the water through the walls of 

 the filaments seems to conduce towards the formation of the 

 nucleus, at least such is my conjecture, from having frequently 



