168 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [MARCH 
This initial cell, strangely, contributes nothing essential to the concep- 
tacle. It either degenerates directly without having divided at all, or 
it produces a short filament whose terminal portion degenerates. A 
cortical cell below the initial is termed by BowER a “‘basal cell.”” This 
cell and others which adjoin the initial cell laterally, divide and form 
the walls of the conceptacle from which the sexual organs and paraph- 
yses arise. The initial cell, therefore, according to BoWER, takes no 
part in the development of the conceptacle, whereas the cells adjacent 
to the initial produce all that is important, the walls and their products. 
The prominent features of this scheme for the development of the con- 
‘ceptacle are, it is seen, degeneration of an unimportant initial cell or 
a part of its filamentous product, and the activity of cells adjacent 
to the initial in producing the entire conceptacle. 
Nearly all contributions in this field since 1880 have been in the 
main confirmatory of the work of BowER. VALIANTE (’83) states that 
the development of the conceptacle in Cystoseira is due to the growth of 
neighboring tissue, about one or two cells. OLTMANNS (’89) describes 
the walls of the conceptacle of Halidrys siliquosa, Himanthalia lorea, 
and Ascophyllum nodosum, as also formed by neighboring cells, with 
the one exception that in Ascophyllum the initial cell develops a mass 
of tissue in the base of the conceptacle. This tissue, he reports, 
shares with the rest of the inner surface formed from neighboring tis- 
sue, in developing the sexual organs. As no degeneration of tissue 
was observed in Ascophyllum, and as its initial cell does contribute 
some important tissue the development of the conceptacle, this genus 
presents an exception to a part of the scheme which Bower reports. 
Although Sphlachnidium should no longer be included in the Fuca- 
ceae, as shown by the Misses Mirc#ELL and WHITTING (’92), it is of 
interest to note that these investigators report its conceptacle as devel- 
oping by the radial division of cells adjacent to a persistent but incon- 
sequential element, which they believe to be homologous with the initial 
cell of Bower. GRUBER (’96) states that the conceptacle of Sezro- 
coccus axillaria is more like that of Halidrys than Ascophyllum, which 
means, again, that it has an initial cell which contributes nothing of 
consequence to the conceptacle, whose walls are formed by cells which 
are adjacent to the initial. 
- Hotz (:03) reports that in the development of the conceptacle of 
