254 BOTANICAL GAZETTE 
leading to uplifted stalked structures and on the other resulting 
in a submerged condition. We know at present too little of the com 
parative structure and development of the archegonium and antherid- 
ium, to define safely the evolutionary tendencies throughout the 
various groups of the pteridophytes. 
Ill. COENOGAMETES. . 
Coenogametes (DAVIS ’oo, p. 307) are multinucleate sexual cil 
and are morphologically either gametocysts that have become change! 
directly into gametes or they are restricted portions of such cells 
Recent investigations have established their presence in varits 
Phycomycetes and Ascomycetes, and it is probable that future 
studies will show them to be a type of sexual organ common in these 
regions of the plant kingdom. We do not know enough to justi 
speculation as to the exact relationships of these structures, but it 
not likely that they are all closely related to one another, and it 8 
very probable that various types of coenogametes may have ansea 
independently. 
Coenogametes fall into two classes: (1) those in which 
protoplasm of the parent cell is retained in the gamete; and (2) those 
in which only a portion of the protoplasm is thus utilized, the aoe 
der being devoted to other functions than that of reproduction 
is not perfectly clear as yet whether the evolutionary tendencies 
from the first group towards the second or vice versd, OF pee 
irregularly both ways. But from our knowledge of the lines of om 
evolution in the other two groups of sexual organs (gametocyss de 
gametangia), the author believes the general advance to be from 
simpler first class of coenogametes to the more complicat 
class. 
Coenogametes of the first class are best illustrated by os a 
organs of the Mucorales and the Gymnoascales. The latter 
h c . ? who finds that 
as been recently studied by Miss Date (’03); “ch 
earliest stage of the gamete is a uninucleate cell whi ae 
multinucleate as it increases in size. After the union of ee a 
gametes the ascogenous hyphae develop from a coiled p histor? of 
that grows out from the fusion cell. We do not eg ~ bet 
the nuclei in the fusing gametes of the molds or 7 G ; 
there is every reason to expect that most of them unite 
all of the 
rg 98 
