The Reproduction of Ahnfeltia plicata. 25 
rows does not seem favourable to this view, as cystocarps 
of such a structure do not occur within Gigartinales to which 
the genus Ahnfeltia is usually referred. The interpretation 
of the secondary nemathecial filaments as gonimoblast 
filaments would be in better accordance with the facts 
known supposing that Ahnfeltia were related to the Cryp- 
tonemiales where both sexual and sporophytic nemathecia 
occur, and where cystocarps with a structure showing some 
resemblance to that of the nemathecia of Anfeltia are known 
(e. g. Polyides). The frond and the young, primary, nema- 
thecia can be regarded as the gametophyte with modified 
procarps: the generative cells, which produce the secondary 
nemathecial filaments representing the sporophytic phase. 
The number of chromosomes is four in the nuclei of 
the spores as well as in the nuclei of the secondary nema- 
thecial filaments from which they arise, and probably 
the same number occurs in both phases of Ahnfeltia. This 
number must be the haploid number as no reduction of 
the chromosome number occurs and no fusion of nuclei 
has been ascertained, although not rarely fusions of cells 
occur in the first (gametophytic) phase as well as the sporo- 
phytic phase. 
One or the other interpretation may be right, the nema- 
thecium of Ahnfeltia will in any case remain a very peculiar 
formation otherwise hitherto unknown among Florideæ. 
