On the Amylaceous Globules 0/ Me Floridese anc? Corallineae. 117 



On opening a number of specimens, it was found that all 

 those with a large anal fin were males, while those in which that 

 organ was small were females. The females are, however, to be 

 distinguished from the males by another character, namely the 

 much larger size of the urogenital pore, which is situated imme- 

 diately behind the anus. 



XXII. — On the Amylaceous Globules of the Floridese and Coral- 

 lineae. By M. van Tieghem*. 



KiiTZiNG first indicatedf the existence in the cells of certain 

 rioridese of amyloid grains, sometimes endowed with a con- 

 centric structure ; but in assimilating them to the proto- 

 plasmic globules of the green and olive Algae, in including 

 under the general name of cellular globules or gonidia the whole 

 of the intracellular formations of the Algae, however dissimilar 

 they may be, and in ascribing to them, as is implied by this 

 name, a reproductive faculty, the illustrious algologist seems to 

 me to have misunderstood their nature and function. M. Nagelj, 

 also, in his great work on starch-grains %, hesitates to pronounce 

 an opinion as to the existence of starch in the Florideae. His 

 own observations, indeed, showed him, in Cystoclonium purpu- 

 rascens, Kiitz., some globules to which iodine communicates a 

 coloration varying from red to brown and violet ; but he took 

 them for slightly amylaceous parietal grains of protoplasm, and 

 he remained so uncertain upon this point as to declare, in 

 another part of his memoir (p. 382), that starch-grains are 

 wanting in the Florideae, and finally to leave to future investi- 

 gations the care of deciding whether these Algae do possess 

 starch, and of what kind it is. It is this point that I have 

 undertaken to clear up by a series of observations, of which I 

 have the honour to present the Academy with the first results. 



For the sake of clearness I shall take as an example Halo- 

 pithys pinastroides, Kutz., which is found in abundance on our 

 coasts. In the cylindrical and much branched frond of this 

 Floridean, the thickened joints of the axis contain only a finely 

 granular liquid ; the joints of the five siphons, on the contrary, 

 and the cortical cells are filled with transparent globules, which 

 are colourless in the interior tissue and of a rosy tint in the 

 peripheral zone, although readily deprived of their colour by 

 alcohol; these are scattered in the liquid which bathes the 

 sections, forming therein white streaks. Their most general 



* Translated from the Comptes Rendus, Nov. 6, 1865, pp. 804-807. 



t Phycologia generalis, p. 40. 



X Pflanzenphysiologische Untersuchungen : Die Starke-Komer, 1858. 



