90 Prof. F. Schmitz on the 
giacex must at least be separated as a distinct group from the 
very coherent group of the Floridea*. 
But it seems to me that this peculiar group of the Bangiacez 
cannot be placed close to the Floridee as the most nearly 
allied group in the natural system. The agreement of the 
Bangiaceew with the Floridee depends fundamentally only 
upon a few subordinate points. In both groups of Alge the 
chromatophores are generally not chlorophyll-green, but 
coloured with various shades of red or brown ; in both groups 
of Alge the male cells are not motile (so far as is at present 
ascertained t); in both groups of Alge the fertilized ovicell 
produces, without a period of rest, usually a considerable 
number of asexual spores. Nearly all these individual cha- 
racters also occur in other groups of Algae (e.g. even the 
Dictyotacese likewise possess motionless male cells, for which 
reason they have also sometimes been regarded as Floridez) ; 
but, in my judgment, they do not of themselves alone establish 
an immediate relationship between the Bangiacez and Floridez. 
I rather believe, as I have already stated briefly elsewhere f, 
that, in the natural system of the Thallophyta, the Bangiacez 
are to be placed alongside of the Chlorophycean group of the 
Schizogones (Prasiola, Schizomeris, Schizogonium, Palmoglea, 
Porphyridium) ; while the Floridee certainly attach them- 
selves through the Coleochetex to the main stem of the Alga, 
the Chlorophycex §, but are separated by a_ sufficiently 
wide gap from these Chlorophycez, and represent a group 
sufficiently large, numerous in forms, and peculiarly developed 
to be judiciously distinguished as a special, independent section 
of the Alge, the Rhodophycee. 
The results of the extant investigations upon the fructifi- 
* Even the conception of the Bangiaceze as a peculiar branch of the 
Floridez, which has branched off from the very base of this great Algal 
stem, cannot prevent the otherwise so perfectly harmonious ramification 
of ae Algal stem from being seriously interfered with by this very 
branch. 
+ Hitherto the faculty of free locomotion is ascribed only to the sper- 
matia of Erythrotrichia by Berthold (/. c. p. 13). But at present we are 
quite without any statements in what manner this locomotion is effected. 
Compare herewith the above statements (p. 9, note *) upon the spon- 
taneous mobility of the spermatia of the Florideze. : 
¢ Schmitz, ‘Chromatophoren der Algen,’ p. 3, note 1. 
§ By this arrangement the relationship of the Floridee with the 
Bangiaceee, so far as this actually exists, is also expressed, in my judg- 
ment, in a perfectly satisfactory manner; for by the approximation of 
the Floridez to the Coleochatez the former also join on to the other 
groups of the Chlorophyceze, and thereby also to the Bangiacese. Never- 
theless the Bangiacew and Floridee are certainly here torn more widely 
asunder than has usually been the case of late. 
