384 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [ NOVEMBER 
sexual fusions among the spores of Alge, but may explain many “abnor- 
mal"’ processes, such as the fusion of three or four zoospores in Acetabularia, 
etc. Many appearances in Dasycladus are due to abortions, the protoplasm 
having emerged from the mother cell before the zoospores are perfectly 
formed. 
The author believes that Berthold saw nothing but the activity of infu- 
sorians, and confirms his views by drawings from some of Berthold’s prepa- 
rations. The fusion of nuclei in the zygote is nowhere seen. That Berthold 
found zygotes in only a part of his cultures, that he had so many female and 
so few male zoospores, and that his zygotes never germinated, all go to prove 
that the bodies were really infusorians. Oltmanns obtains his best results in 
cultures from three to four days old, those younger not giving the infusorians 
time to come into sufficient prominence. One can but regret that so impor- 
tant a paper should be accompanied by drawings so small as to make it diffi- 
cult to distinguish chromatophore from nucleus, to say nothing of telling a 
zoospore nucleus from that of an infusorian. 
Berthold’s reply® immediately follows. Since Thuret, no one has denied 
that spores from plurilocular sporangia could germinate without fusion. 
Oltmanns did not see the sexually formed spores at all, and what he describes 
as Chytridee were described by Berthold in 1881 as products of the dis- 
organization of male zoospores. The genuine zygotes are formed very soon 
after the spores are formed, and if formed at all are exceedingly numerous. 
Fusion of more than two zoospores is very rare. The existence of the extra 
(infusorian) nucleus is to be doubted. A series of memoranda, made while 
studying the living material, shows how some cultures could be recognized as 
composed of male, others of female zoospores, and still others of neutral 
spores capable of direct germination. From one lot of zygotes plants with 
plurilocular sporangia were finally obtained. Spores of one culture were nearly 
all alike; and cultures of male and female zoospores when mixed gave 
zygotes in the greatest number. 
We agree with the two authors that little more is to be learned from mere 
discussion. Such directly conflicting statements can only be reconciled by 
further investigation.— W. D. M. 
Dr. C. O. Townsend? has further investigated the relation of the nucleus 
to cell wall formations in a large series of plant cells. He finds that in every 
case the presence of a nucleus is necessary to enable a mass of protoplasm 
to enclose itself with a wall. This influence of the nucleus, however, CP be 
transmitted to considerable distances between parts of the same cell : 
*Bemerkungen zu der vorstehenden Abhandlung von Fr. Oltmanns- Fae 
83: 415-425. 1897. 
Baal re die Bild: ng der Zellhaut. Inaug- Diss. Jahrb. f. * 
wiss. Bot. 30:—. 1897. [Heft. 4] 
