316 BOTANICAL GAZETTE | NOVEMBER 
propped up by three or four minute drops of a mixture of bees- 
wax and vaseline. A bell jar lined with moist filter paper was 
sufficient to prevent the evaporation of the solution for twenty- 
four hours, and a drop of nutrient fluid added at one side of the 
cover-glass replaced any loss during the examination under the 
microscope. Such cultures require daily examination, of course, 
but when the life history of an organism is being followed out 
this is an advantage rather than an objection. The wax sup- 
ports for the cover-glass were preferable to bits of glass or filter 
paper because they permitted the crushing out of a specimen, if 
necessary, and held the cell in just the desired position. Cul- 
tures of this kind gave the best of results, the algae apparently 
developing in a perfectly normal manner. 
MULTIPLICATON AND DEVELOPMENT. 
De Bary, in his observations upon Eremosphaera, discovered 
that it multiplied by simple division into two or four cells, each 
of which soon attained the size of the original plant. Henfrey 
likewise recognized this condition. Such a division is accom- 
plished by the formation of a new wall between the two halves of 
the original cell. This wall extends completely around each 
half, and as the nucleus divides and the chromatophores, with 
the protoplasm, form into two irregular masses, the gelatinous 
wall pushes in from the periphery, forming the division (jig. 6). 
The two cells thus formed gradually increase in size, so that in a 
short time the original wall is ruptured and the daughter plants 
are liberated. These usually escape as perfect spheres, but may 
retain their flattened appearance for a short time, as is shown in 
jig. 7. More rarely a second division may take place at right 
angles to the first, thus producing four daughter cells instead of 
two (fig. 8). Wolle (8) and Chodat (1) both speak of even 
further successive divisions, but my material has never shown 
more than four cells formed in this way. 
This method of simple division has been believed to be the 
only means of propagation in Eremosphaera, and it was not 
until the result of the researches of Chodat became known, that 
