BRIEFER ARTICLES 317 
The chief peculiarity of Schmitz’s views lay in his theory of a double 
fertilization, applied to such forms as have auxiliary cells with the phe- 
nomenon of secondary fusion, and typified in Dudresnaya. There 
were two sexual acts. ‘he first occurred when the sperm cell fused 
with the trichogyne and its male nucleus entered the carpogonium ; 
but a second act of fertilization took place when the fertilized carpo- 
gonium, or the filaments derived from this structure, fused with an 
auxiliary cell. The development of filaments from the carpogonium 
that were to fuse with auxiliary cells was a device by which the male 
tuclear substances could be distributed to a number of such elements, 
thus multiplying greatly the effects of the sexual act. 
The extent to which the theories of Schmitz were developed and 
perhaps extended by his followers, on what seems today a very inade- 
quate basis of fact, need not be considered in detail here. The accounts 
f various members of the Chylocladiaceee by Hauptfleisch, and 
Schmitz’s own view of the fusion plate of Corallina are illustrations to 
the point. The ‘first author stated that in the forms studied by him 
0 
vaiay offering extreme and peculiar difficulties. 
; €s is a serious defect in th of Schmitz an 
part in the papers 
i leularly as they dealt with subjects acknowledge¢ to be of great 
"plexity, 
