2 Prof, F. Schmitz on the 
results. The Floridez, especially, in which the union of the 
two sexual cells usually has as its consequence the further 
development of a third more or less distinct cell, present great 
difficulties to a general theory of sexuality. 
My own observations upon the development of the Squa- 
marie had led me to the discovery of peculiar processes in 
the formation of the fruit in that group of Floridee, which 
joined on to the previous observations of Thuret and Bornet 
on the fructification of Dudresnaya and Polyides. This in- 
duced me to extend my investigations further, and to attempt 
the general solution of the question of the mode of sexual 
fertilization and fructification in the Floridee. The solution 
of this problem was rendered remarkably difficult by the cir- 
cumstance that in my dwelling-place (situated far inland) the 
procuring of the requisite material for mvestigation was at- 
tended with the greatest difficulty. Hence I feel it to be my 
duty to offer my special thanks to the Royal Academy of 
Sciences in Berlin, for having enabled me to make a long 
sojourn on the sea-coast in the autumn of 1881. And I also 
express my most grateful thanks to Dr. Bornet of Paris for 
his liberal and always ready assistance with material for in- 
vestigation. 
This difficulty of procuring suitable material for examina- 
tion, in order to complete and conclude the studies that I had 
commenced, may also justify me in bringing together in what 
followst the results obtained, as a report upon my investiga- 
tions up to this time, without at present going much into 
detail. I propose still further to continue this investigation of 
the Floridez, and, if possible, to complete it by the exami- 
nation of all the types of the Huropean seas. 
I. 
The thallus of the Floridee is generally composed of 
branched cellular filaments. ‘These individual branched cel- 
lular filaments are sometimes free (Chantransia, Callitham- 
nion), sometimes held together by a more or less dense jelly 
(Batrachospermum, Crouania, Nemalion), sometimes so firmly 
and closely involved by a very dense and tenacious intercel- 
lular substance as to represent a parenchymatous cellular 
* Sitzungsb. niederrhein. Gesellsch. fiir Nat.- und Heilkunde zu Bonn, 
4th August, 1879, pp. 876, 377. 
+ The numerous statements in literature which are opposed to various 
individual points in the following statement cannot here be entered upon 
in detail. This must remain for a future special elaboration of the diffe- 
rent groups of the Floridez. 
