868 REPORT—1 890. 
epicarp the main factor, and describes the diameter of the hole in the pericarp as 
much larger than that of the fruit-stalk. The author considers this not to be the 
case, and is led to regard the vascular basket-work and the thick-walled, pitted 
cells of mesocarp and endocarp as the chief agents. Of the many plants examined 
not one was found in which the stalk was not thicker than the diameter of the 
pericarp hole, indicating that the pericarp contracts at rupture, owing to the 
coming into play of the elasticity of the stretched mesocarp and endocarp. It is of 
interest to note that, according to Van Tieghem, Ecballium elaterium is the only 
one of the Cucurbitacee without tendrils, dissemination of seeds being thus ensured 
in it by the violent manner of dehiscence. 
6. Observations on Brown and on Red Seaweeds. 
By Professor T. Jounson, B.Sc., F.D.S. 
(1.) New Mode of Vegetative Reproduction in Pheeophycee. 
The solitary or tufted hairs which give the trichothallic growth in so many 
brown sea-weeds are well known. The author has found that in two closely 
allied genera, Punctaria and Asperococcus, the tufts of hairs which, in the ordinary 
life of the plant, contribute to the growth of the thallus are capable of giving rise 
to new plants as the parent plant dies down. He has found herbarium plants, 
especially of Punctaria, with such seedlings in the herbaria of the Royal Gardens, 
Kew, British Museum (Natural History), and Trinity College, Dublin. The 
specimens are not numerous, as the plantlets occur on apparently dying plants. 
One specimen has the remark on the sheet, a‘ P. plantaginea, very small,’ He 
has dredged plants bearing these plantlets several times in Cawsand Bay and other 
parts of Plymouth Sound. He proposes to deal at length elsewhere with the 
results to which this discovery has led him. 
(2.) Arthocladia villosa. 
Each compartment of the plurilocular zoosporangium of Arthrocladia villosa 
contains 4-12 zoospores, not, as figured, a single large zoospore. The zoospores are: 
all alike, and have the general structure of a phzophycean zoospore. In using the 
term plurilocular zoosporangium one supposes each chamber of the sporangium to 
contain only one spore. One ought to regard the stalked plurilocuiar zoosporangium 
of A. villosa as a series of unilocular multisporous zoosporangia. The author 
described the attempts he had made to observe the functions of the zoospores, and 
also their behaviour to light. 
(8.) ‘Oogonia of Cutleria multifida.’ 
In all the descriptions of fertilisation in the interesting group of the Cutleriacee 
‘the absence of signs of a nucleus in the ovum is noted,’ in place of ‘the ovum is 
said to be without a nucleus,’ This is no doubt due to the dense granularity of the 
ovum and examination of contents by simple crushing. ‘Investigation of ripe ova 
by microtome and suitable stains shows that each ovum is, as might be expected, 
distinctly nucleated. A renewed investigation of the maturation and mode of fer- 
tilisation of the ova of the Cutleriacee seems necessary. The author drew atten- 
tion to the bearing the position of the oogonia in the Cutlertace@ and the Fucacee 
has on the affinities of these two groups. 
Specimens illustrating the above were exhibited. 
7. On the Arrangements for recording Phenological Phenomena. 
By G. J. Symons, FBS. 
Phenological observations, which may perhaps be said to have originated with 
Gilbert White, although studied with care in Austria, received little attention in 
England until 1874, when the Royal Meteorological Society invited and obtained 
ak Pon 
