Phyllophora Brodiæi and Actinococeus subcutaneus. (3) 
The question of the nature of the nemathecial bodies was 
first taken up for thorough examination by Fr. SCHMITZ 
in a paper on the genus Actinococcus (1893). He had 
worked at the question for several years and had reached 
the conclusion that Aclinococcus roseus must be con- 
sidered as a parasite growing on Phyllophora Brodiei, a 
view he expressed already in 1899 in the survey he publish- 
ed of the hitherto known genera of Floridez (Flora 1889), 
and this view was adopted by REINKE in his Algenflora der 
westl. Ostsee published in the same year. SCHMITZ found 
that the medullary cells of Phyllophora in the interior of 
the nemathecial fruit are separated more or less from each 
other and the interstices filled up with a complex of smaller 
cells forming branched rows of cells. In the outer cortex, these 
filaments continue as the radiating filaments in the nema- 
thecial wart where they later form the seriate tetrasporangia. 
But with these fertile filaments, groups of short cortical 
filaments originating from the sterile frond are frequently 
intermixed, in particular in young nemathecial warts. When 
two such warts of different ages are to be found on the 
opposite faces of the same segment of the frond, as will 
frequently happen, the filaments constituting the one wart 
can be followed into the interior of the fertile section of 
the frond and from thence to the opposite nemathecial wart. 
Moreover, several quite young warts may fuse together to 
form one nemathecial wart. In quite young warts the “fertile” 
cells do not become connected through pits with the cells 
of the sterile tissue. Such a connection seems only to be 
established with certain cells which then become larger 
and rich in protoplasm. The alleged facts could, in 
SCHMITZ's opinion, only be explained by the supposition 
that there are two different organisms, a host plant and 
