CONFERVOID FILAMENTS OF MOSSES. 585 
in the ■ Micrographic Dictionary,' namely, that chlorophyll-granules are probably small 
portions of contents coloured by chlorophyll. If we consider them to be such, and that 
they are capable of losing colour, or of changing it to brown or red, , c, then it is easy 
to conceive, and what indeed we should expect, that each granule could proceed to form 
a cell within the parent cell in accordance with what we know of free-cell formation ; and 
thus the various opinions expressed upon this point are capable of being reconciled. 
Whether this condition extend to the chlorophyll-granules of Nitella, Cham, iVc, I am 
not in possession of any facts to show. 
5. But perhaps the most interesting fact I have met with in the course of in\ 
observations on the filaments is that of tins formation of zoospores from these enlarged 
and segmenting chlorophyll-utricles. I am not aware of their having been noticed in 
the Cryptogamia above the Algae, though they have been seen in the Fungi. 
The evidence upon which it is based seems to me at least as conclusive as it is possible 
to obtain under the circumstances, unless the zoospores were Been to emerge directly 
from within the cell of the filament. It is possible that future observat ion may be able 
to confirm my observation in this direction; but without that, it seems that we may (airly 
conclude that zoospores can spring from these cells; and this is perhaps not quite so 
surprising a fact as it would at first sight appear, when we reflect that the formation of 
zoospores is purely a vegetative process and, for anything we Know, may be more 
extensive throughout the vegetable kingdom. 
I have already remarked*, with respect to the diamorphosis of Lyngbya, that the 
distinction between Viva and Frasiola was now confined to the supposed fact that the 
former produced zoospores, while the latter did not. This, I objected, could not be 
held a sufficiently distinctive sign, on account of the truly vegetative origin of the 
zoospores, which are merely a variety of gonidial formation 
Zoospores seem capable of arising at various epochs m the life of a plant, and of 
various sizes. An interesting account, as they occur in HydroMyo,,, is given by 
Prinffsheim in Mic. Journ., April 1862. ^. . 
It is a very interesting feature, however, to find, that the con ervo.d filaments oi 
Mosses, which in so many ways present the confervoid type, should also m tins show one 
of the most marked and frequent phenomena of the Alga.. 
6 The last point to which I shaU allude is the near connexmn with the A ga »l.< h 
Mosses hom in their capability of producing gonidia from any port.on of te < ™ 
or leaves The facts I have brought forward here show a very cunous l,„k ex.stmg 
betleTthe Thallogens and the higher Cryptogamia, and prove that the formats 
gonidia by no means ends with the Alga?. . 
* Mic. Journ. supra cit. 
the 
Of 
4i2 
