572 PR. J- B. HICKS ON THE GONIDIA AND 
fully increased, if not exposed to too much light ; so that in a week it can multiply itself 
200 or 300 times, while the original type has heen nearly preserved, the slight alteration 
being in the elongations of the cells, and a decrease of their breadth. 
Now, although, for the most part, these confervoid filaments generally preserve their 
peculiar appearance, and are in this manner very readily distinguished from the true 
root -filaments, whose endoplast is colourless and the cell-walls more or less stained with 
a brown colour, yet there is a great tendency for each, even after full formation, to pass 
into the other. This can be frequently seen in their natural state, and can be shown 
by experiment (Pl.LVII.fig. 8). The greater tendency, however, is for the radicles to 
pass into the confervoid filament than the contrary. The colourless endoplast of the 
true radicles becomes green and granular ; and ultimately they exhibit all the characters 
of true confervoid filaments. On the other hand, I placed in the sun a glass full of the 
filaments which had grown, and were then growing, in water. After a week the cell- 
walls of the older portions had become stained brown, and they had assumed the ap- 
pearance of those radicles whose contents had assumed the green colour. 
Some of the filaments which I had grown in water branched in a manner very similar 
to Draparnaldia tenuis {Stygeoclonium tenue, Kiitzing) ; indeed, had it not been for its 
known origin, I should have instantly regarded it as such. I have shown one less 
marked at PI. LVII. fig. 9 (the only one of which I preserved a drawing). In a glass of 
water, where I had placed Moss, on one occasion I found a very fine specimen of D. tenuis. 
This is a very unusual place to find this plant ; and though I could not absolutely trace 
it to a Moss, yet, coupled with the fact that similar growths can be so originated, and 
also that the radicles produce elongated cilia-like cells, it seems to be a point worthy of 
further research, whether or not that genus, or at any rate the above species, may or may 
not have its origin from Moss in some one of its phases. Nor should this, in our present 
state of knowledge, be considered a wild speculation ; for we know nothing of the agamic 
growth of Draparnaldia : we have nothing to militate against its being one mode of 
vegetative growth of a form considered altogether distinct ; and this is not more extrava- 
gant than the known fact that these confervoid filaments can produce and spring from 
Mosses. I again remark, we know so little of the whole possible life-history of these 
simpler plants, that our want of knowledge of a precedent cannot be quoted against it. 
Frequently in the larger filaments, and towards the extremity of those whose growth 
is not very active, may be seen here and there a considerable separation between the two 
adjacent cells. If this be carefully examined, it will be noticed that this space is filled 
by a transparent, colourless cell, which at first sight might be considered to have no 
contents ; but upon careful examination, and the use of reagents, it will be found that 
there is colourless homogeneous endoplast, so closely applied to the inner side of the 
cell-wall as otherwise to escape detection (PL LVII. fig. 10). When the cells of this 
filament separate from one another, these transparent cells also become detached, and 
ssume the shape of flattened spheres, or they may become quite globular. Whether 
they possess any further history I am unable to tell. It seems rather to be some 
abnormal condition of cell-formation at the line of the separation of the two portions 
a portion detaching itself at the time of division, and forming around it a layer of 
