168 Dr. H. Charlton Bastian on the 
The most remarkable facts, however, about these germi- 
nating resting-spores have had reference to the contained 
heaps of pigment, loosely spoken of in the foregoing transla- 
tion from Pringsheim as “nuclei.” The facts observed were 
so remarkable that I was anxious to repeat my observations 
in the following year, and this was done. 
On June 8th, 1902, I found a quantity of Vaucheria race- 
mosa, growing at the edge of a pond, which was absolutely 
crowded with resting-spores. Some of this plant was kept in 
water in a shallow dish, and after a day or two numbers of 
the spores were placed in a small stoppered bottle half-full of 
water. Another large quantity of spores was placed with 
water in a tumbler, and merely covered loosely, so as to 
exclude dust. 
On July 24th—that is, only six and a half weeks from the 
date of gathering—many of the resting-spores within the 
stoppered bottle were found to have germinated, though at 
that date none of the spores in the tumbler could be found in 
this condition. Subsequent examinations made it clear that 
germination took place more rapidly in the closed bottle than 
in the open tumbler. I have no record of the date when I 
first found them germinating in the tumbler, but I can say 
that at the expiration of three and a half months hundreds of 
these spores were germinating, and that the process was seen 
occurring in others of them during the next two months. 
It may not be out of place to say a few words now con- 
cerning the condition of these resting-spores in the long 
interval that occurs between decolorization and germination. 
For a long time they remain, without apparent change, of 
a greyish-white colour, owing to the presence of an intimate 
mixture of colourless granules and corpuscles, the latter 
seeming to be derivatives or remainders from the green 
corpuscles with which the spores were originally packed. 
More or less in the centre a large mass of pigment-granules, 
mostly of a blackish-green colour (Pl. XIV. fig. 1, A, x 250), 
but sometimes of a red-brown or red-orange tint, as in V. race- 
mosa, 18 to be seen. Three or four, or even more, smaller 
pigment-heaps, instead of one large one, are very common in 
this latter species. The largest number I have ever found is 
shown in B(x 250). It seems perfectly clear that these 
heaps of finely granular pigment are merely refuse products 
left over during the process of molecular transformation that 
the spore has undergone in becoming decolorized. Micro- 
scopical examination shows that they are mere heaps of fine 
granules, unsurrounded by any bounding membrane, 
