1882.] 



MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 



147 



nose-piece, the stand sells for $105.00. 

 Mr. Grunow states that in making 

 this stand he has endeavored to meet 

 the wants of those who desire a well- 

 made stand at a reasonable price. 

 He has, therefore, given great atten- 

 tion to the workmanship, and has 

 modeled it so as to save all possible 

 cost in manufacture. It is a stand 

 especially adapted to physician's 

 work. 



Fig. 36. 



The cut renders a detailed descrip- 

 tion unnecessary. 



o 



Fresh-water Algse. 



The April number of Hedwigia, a 

 botanical journal published in Leip- 

 zig, contains an elaborate article on 

 the question, " Is Spcerozyga Jacobi a 

 synonyme for Mastigocladus lamino- 



sus? " Although the author bestowed 

 much care and patience upon the ex- 

 amination of his dried specimens to 

 prove that the two forms are differ- 

 ent plants, yet he utterly failed to 

 convince us that his deductions are 

 correct. To meet his ingenious ar- 

 guments would require better oppor- 

 tunities than it has been our privilege 

 to enjoy for the study of the life- 

 history of the so-called Mastigocla- 

 dus. ' A sojourn at Karlsbad, the 

 habitat of the form in question, and 

 the exercise of the patience of a Dr. 

 Itzigsohn to watch its development 

 and growth for a year or two might 

 be needed. It is not enough to know 

 that one author and another natural- 

 ist found it in the same waters, and 

 in nearly the same condition ; but it 

 is also interesting to learn that the 

 collectors and students obtained 

 something which none of them ap- 

 peared to understand. Our author 

 himself acknowledges " there is a 

 labyrinth of synonymes." There seems 

 to have been something very vague 

 about the forms ; one pronounced 

 the plant Anabcena, another a Nostoc; 

 one author hazarded the opinion that 

 it was a Sphcerozyga ; Kiitzing called 

 it a Merizomeria, then a form of an 

 alga corresponding to his Cylindro- 

 spermum licheniforme ; Cohn made 

 of it a new genus under the term 

 Mastigocladus. 



The critics were, every one of them, 

 close observers, but the diversity of 

 conditions due to different stages of 

 development gave rise to diversities 

 of opinion. 



To us the simple appearance of 

 Mastigocladus laminosus, as figured, is 

 sufificient to explain the mystery about 

 it. All the features are those of 

 developing forms — the somewhat ir- 

 regular cell-forms of the trichoma, 

 some spherical, some oblong or oval, 

 and others cylindrical, and then the 

 more elongated articulations of the 

 pseudo-branchlets are features com- 

 mon to the early stages in the devel- 

 opment of many filamentous algoe. 

 During the infancy of the study of 



