270 The Botanical Gazette. [June, 
produced must have grown under starved conditions, or, for some 
assumption. In some cases, it is true, the filaments bearing such or- 
gans were more or less disorganized, the chlorophyll scanty and aggre- 
gated in broken masses. In other filaments, however, upon which the 
fruiting branches were equally deformed, the chlorophyll was in a 
merge condition, and the filaments had every appearance of thrift 
and vigor. Moreover, on filaments wholly destitute of chlorophyll 
and areal disorganized, perfectly normal fruit bodies appeared. 
But these appearances become totally irrelevant to our conclusions 
when we remember that the non-septate structure of these plants per- 
mits free circulation from filament to filament through long distances, 
and hence the chlorophyll conditions may become conspicuously 
altered, in a certain part of the plant, after the development of the 
fruit branch. 
In order, then, to prove the relation of growth conditions to this 
abnormal development, it remains to be shown, first, what were the 
conditions of growth under which this occurred; second, that similar 
conditions will produce similar results; and, third, that opposed con- 
ditions tend to prevent such development. As to the first we know 
only that the plants grew floating in the water of a flooded marsh, not 
in contact with the soil, and bathed, presumably, by comparatively 
clear water, since they floated above a toughly sodded bed. We also 
know, from experiments, that these same plants grown in vessels of 
clear water in the laboratory, continued to produce abnormal fruit. 
No experiments have been made to prove that normal plants would 
degenerate if grown in the same way. 
As to whether the same material grown on moist earth or in less 
crowded masses would behave differently, we have no definite experi- 
mental knowledge, and hence, on the whole, are not warranted in as- 
serting conclusively the relation of this peculiar development to 
growth conditions.—Mary A. NicHo.s, Cornell University. 
XPLANATION OF PLate XXI.—Fig. 1 shows a mixed type,7, 7, being rudi- 
mentary organs either male or female, described under type 1, and 2, @, anthe- 
ridia developed in place of oogonia (type 3). 
ig 2 illustrates another form of types 1 and 3. 7, rudiment; a, @, anther- 
idia. 
Fig. 3 shows type 3 apie three antheridia, and no oogonia, or perhaps 
very rudimentary ones, at 7, 
ig. 4 shows parent ie and lateral bud, each bearing one antheridium 
only; 4, a broken branch, leaving no indication of its nature. 
Norg.—Such cases as that shown in Fig. I leave room for suspicion that the 
branches a, 2, are not simple antheridia, but lateral buds similar to that of 
