CONFERVOID FILAMENTS OF MOSSKS. 6G9 
with those of neighbouring plants. These have been known as the " confervoid fila- 
ments," or "confervoid radicles" (PL LVII. fig. 1). 
Formerly they were not recognized as belonging to the Mosses, and were at one time 
very decidedly claimed by algologists *, under the name of " Protonema." "We owe to 
Kiitzing the discovery that Protonema is not an Alga, but the product of Mosses f, 
although, before him, it was not unknown that Mosses did produce confervoid filaments 
from their spore}. Subsequently Schimper, in his excellent work on the Mosses §, 
confirmed the correctness of this observation of Kiitzing, and more fully traced the 
development and growth of the confervoid filaments from the spore, and the "propa- 
gule," and the origin of the leafy axis from them. As far as my observations have 
proceeded in this direction, they coincide with those of Schimper, and therefore I must 
refer those interested in the subject to his work. 
Now Kiitzing, in his * Phycologia Generalis,' retains the group Protonemese, and of 
them he says, "They are Conferva? nearly allied to Chuhphora. They are particu- 
larly distinguished by growing out of water, by pushing their root* into the earth, as 
the Mosses do, and by never developing their fruit between the branches of the thread, 
but either on the end of the same or on one side." He -ives two genera, Protonmm 
and Gongrosira. Their characters he describes as follows : 
Trichomata radicantia, parenchymatica, ramosa, ccelogonimica. Gonidia in lineas 
longitudinales disposita ; spermatia pedunculata, lateralia. 
2. Gongrosira. ' ^ 
Trichomata radicantia, parenchymatica, ramosa, apice demum torulosa. Articuh 
ultimi demum in spermatia terminalia transeuntes. 
That Gongrosira is also derived from the same origin seems clear to me; certainly G. 
clavata (Kiitzing), called by Dillwyn Conferva mMcapiulari*. and recognized as such 
by Kiitzing himself, is of moss-origin. So also is G. sclerosans (« Phycologia Generalis, 
tab. xvii. fig. 8), so far as can be judged from the figure given. 
Besides these Protoneme*, there is another allied family given by Kut.mg 
transieae. In this is included the genus Chroolepus, the characters of which are thus 
"^ichomata cartilaginea, colorata, polygonimica, ramosa. Spermatia nunc lateralia, 
Ch 
s 
terminalia 
>> 
That some of the forms figured under this name belong to the confervoid filaments of 
Moss I think highly probable. 
The plate of Chrooleim (tab. vii. fig. 2) certainly resembles a condiHon winch the 
moss-growth assumes 
* See Eng. Bot. " Protonema, 
99 
Synop 
t **** Phycologia <">»"« ■-* <££. ^ LinMan 
Fr. L. 
I Hedwzg, *"undamenta »^u- .—- - > Entwicklung der Laubmoose. Meyen, Pflanzen- 
Nees d'Esenbeck, Nov. Act. Acad. C. L.-L. vol. xm. ^assep , D 
physiologie, t. iii. p. 403. Gottsche on Haplomitnum Hooken, No* Act. Acad. C*s. L. C. N. L. vol. xx. p. 1. 
§ 
4 
