FUCUS VESICULOSUS. 



brown, but contain chlorophyll, which is concealed by other 

 coloring matter.* 



We come now to the special object of interest to all botanists 

 in this plant, which is the enlarged bodies found inside of the 

 conceptacle. The whole object in life of these openings, or 

 rather of the plant itself, is to produce, develop, and scatter the 



fig. 3. Oospheres of the F. Vesiculosus. {After Thuret.} a. Oo- 



sphere. c. Inner Membrane, e. Outer Membrane, d. Point of 



Union of c and e. 



dark bodies seen at c, fig. 3, and called oogonia. They correspond 

 to the female organs of reproduction in the plant. At </, the 

 hairs which line the inner surface and extend far out from the 

 mouth of the conceptacle are seen. 



Fig. 4 represents one of these oogonia magnified 200 diam- 

 eters ; a, cells forming the inner surface of the conceptacle, 

 very thin-walled and filled only with protoplasm ; b, a young 

 oogonium not fully formed and showing only one sack or mem- 

 brane covering it ; d, shows four of the hairs paraphyses cover- 



*In a recent paper (O'omptes Renrtus de 1' Acad. des Sci., Ftb. 22, 1869), Millardet showed 

 ihat from quickly-dried and pulverized Fucaceee an olive-green extract is obtained by a'cohol, 

 which, jhaken up with double its volume of benzine, and then allowed to settle, produces an 

 upper green layer of benzine containing the chlorophyll, while t^e lower alcoholic layer is yel- 

 low, and contains phycoxanthine. Thin sections of the frond, completely extracted with alco- 

 hol, contains also a reddish-brown substance, which, in fresh cell's, adheres to the chlorophyll- 

 grains, and can be extracted by cold water, more easily when the dried fucus has been pre- 

 viously pulverized. Millardet calls this reddish-brown substance phycophseine. 



