SPECIAL MORPHOLOGY : 



147 



120 



glance over the forms as far as may be necessary for the clear compre- 

 hension of the whole, and not to furnish my readers with a monography, 

 I may wholly dispense with all these empty terms. Kiitzing, who has 

 carried this fabrication of words beyond all limits, makes use of seventy 

 terms for the different forms of the family of the Algae. 



We have already spoken at large, in the first part of this work (p. 36), 

 of a very interesting specimen of Algce, namely, the Fermentation 

 Fungus. Much has been written of late years upon this subject, but 

 I will here only enumerate some of the principal works : as, for in- 

 stance, Schwann (Poggendorff's Ann. vol. xli. p. 184.) ; Cagniard-La- 

 tour (L'Institut, 1836, Nov. 23.) ; Meyen (Wiegmann's Archiv, 1838, 

 vol. ii. p. 99.); Querenne (Journal de Pharmacie, 1838, June) ; Turpin 

 (Comptes rendus de 1'Academ. 1838, July ; and L'Institut, 1838, August). 

 We are still very much in the dark respecting the law of development 

 of the Algce. I am not acquainted with any complete exposition of the 

 subject.* There are many Algce of which we do not even know the 

 spores ; for where, in the case of the Confervce, the author speaks of a 

 Massa sporacea (chlorophyll, starch, &c.), he neither understands 

 himself or nature. Kiitzing certainly maintains that the granular cel- 

 lular contents are developed into new plants, but his representations to 

 that effect are far from furnishing us with the requisite proofs ; besides, 

 the whole thing is so contrary to all analogy in the vegetable kingdom 



that it seems best to receive the fact only 

 as provisionally true. The process exhi- 

 bited in the Protococcus viridis is the 

 simplest. Here a spherical cell is slightly 

 expanded, soon after which we perceive 

 two young cells, which become isolated as 

 the parent cell gradually disappears. I 

 have not, however, been able to observe 

 how these young cells are developed. In 

 Mougeotia genuflexa (fig, 120,), the cell 

 of the spore extends at one extremity into 

 a tube, whose end bulges out into a spherical 

 form, flattening out on reaching any sup- 

 port in order to attach itself to it (/*). 

 From the other extremity of the spore, cells 

 proceed, which expand cylindrically and ar- 

 range in a thread-like form. I have been 

 unable to trace them in their earliest deve- 

 lopment ; and have hitherto been unsuc- 

 cessful in my attempts to observe the ger- 

 mination of Spirogyra. Since Vaucher f 

 observed the young Confervce issuing from 

 the burst spore J, nothing more exact has been noticed with regard to 



* Meyen, Physiologic, vol. iii. p. 411., gives the heading of his subject as the Pro- 

 pagation of the Alyae, but in the text speaks almost entirely of Diatomece, part of which 

 are undoubtedly animals, and of a few Conferva:. The most important, as the Fucoidece 

 and Floridea;, are not even mentioned : and this is called a system of physiology. 



f Vaucher, Histoire des Conferves d'Eau douce. Geneve, 1809. 



| Meyen, Physiologie, vol. iii. p. 423., offers only conjectures on the subject. 



l '' Mougeotia genuflexa. Development of the plant from the spore (a) in four stages 

 (b e). The last stage shows the adhesion of the plant by an adhering disc (/), which 

 is already indicated at d by the spherical enlargement (#). 



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