THE ORIGIN OF THE LEAFY SPOROPHYTE. 
JoHN M. CouLtTeER. 
ATTENTION has been called afresh to this exceedingly inter- 
esting and obscure problem by the discussion of alternation 
of generations by Professor Bower in his recent presidential 
address," and in papers of Dr. Klebs,? and Dr. Lang.3 The 
remarks of Professor Bower are largely in defense of his theory 
of the antithetic origin of the sporophyte, which had been 
attacked by Dr. Scott in his presidential address of two years 
before in restating Pringsheim’s theory of homologous alterna- 
tion. In defending his position, Professor Bower discusses argu- 
ments derived from the behavior of algz and certain fungi, from 
bryophytes, and from apogamy and apospory. He claims that 
those alge and phycomycetes which show subdivision of the 
zygote into spores appear to offer the “ key to the enigma” of 
the origin of the sporophyte, but he makes no further claim for 
these “fruit bodies” than that they suggest the way in which 
the sporophyte may have arisen, his view not at all involving 
the idea that these “fruit bodies” and the sporophyte are homo 
genetic. He calls attention to the fact that knowledge of cyto 
logical phenomena among alge and fungi is far too meageh 
especially in connection with the divisions of the zygote referred 
to. If reduction is found to occur in connection with the zygote 
divisions, in such forms as CEdogonium and Coleochete, there 
would be a reasonable foundation for the belief that the “ fruit i 
bodies” are the correlatives of a sporophyte, the beginning of 
neutral generation. ; 
In reference to the bryophytes, Professor Bower sees if 
them a good illustration of the origin of the sporophyte by = 
* Nature, Nov. 17, Noy. 24, Dec. 1. 1898. . 
? Annals of Botany r2: 570-583. 1898. 
3 Annals of Botany r2: 583-592. 1898. 
46 [July 
