82 Prof. F. Schmitz on the 
them, under open conjugation, into analogous auxiliary cells, 
and these then produce pluricellular complexes of spores ; or, 
finally, the fertilized ovicell itself empties the whole or a part 
of its contents, without any formation of branched ooblastema- 
threads, into the auxiliary cells immediately bordering it, and 
thereby causes these to produce pluricellular complexes of 
spores, or branched sporigenous filaments. 
However, this last mode seems essentially to be confined 
to Florideee with very dense and firmly closed cell-tissue 
(Gigartiner, Rhodymeniex, Spharococceex, and Rhodomelez) ; 
but the development of widely spreading ooblastema-threads 
is chiefly proper to the Cryptonemiez, Gelidiez, and Squa- 
mariez, in which either the whole thallus, or the fructifying 
part of it, displays a gelatinous, soft or loose tissue. The 
fertilized ovicell becomes developed directly into simple 
bundles of sporigenous threads generally in such forms, the 
moneecious individuals of which develop numerous carpo- 
gonia and spermatia in close proximity, and make sure of the 
fertilization of numerous carpogonia by the quantity of these 
spermatia, so that it is not necessary, as in the preceding 
cases, in which the fertilizations of the carpogonia only take 
place singly, to use these up, and make them available in as 
many ways as possible. 
In all these different cases, however, it comes finally to the 
formation of a sporigenous tissue-body of very variable size 
and form. ‘This is sometimes seated upon the exterior of the 
thallus of the parent plant, or is enclosed, without any special 
envelope, in the tissue of the thallus ; but generally this tissue- 
body forms a fruit-nucleus (‘ nucleus”’), and is surrounded 
by a very variously formed envelope called the ‘ pericarp ” 
or “involucre.” Both these forms are indicated in deserip- 
tive algology indifferently as “ cystocarpia ;” but such cysto- 
carpia (as, indeed, appears from the foregoing description) are 
of very different origin in the different groups of the Floridez, 
so that, for example, the cystocarpia of Nemalion, Naccaria, 
Dudresnaya, Gleosiphonia, Chilocladia, Nitophyllum, Peys- 
sonelia, Corallina, and Chondrus are by no means equivalent 
in respect of their origin. Nevertheless the circumstance 
that in all these cases the sporigenous mass of tissue, whether 
naked or furnished with a wall, rises on the thallus of 
the parent plant as an independent fruit-body, sufficiently 
justifies the uniform designation of all these different forms of 
fruit. 
If we compare the different process-details of the fructifica- 
tion with one another, it appears that, in the simplest cases, 
the ooblastema-cells directly and immediately produce the 
