\ ‘ 
} 
905] BRIEFER ARTICLES 65 
f. 
of Batrachospermum,? which I described as a nucleated cell with a chro- 
matophore, and whose long life was accounted for by these complexities 
of structure. Later investigators, SCHMIDLE3 and OsTERHOUT,‘ failed to 
find the trichogyne nucleus, but I am confident that my account of this 
structure is substantially correct. It is probable that nucleated trichogynes 
will be discovered in other red algae, and indeed they are likely to be 
quite general in the group, for the great length of these structures is much 
more readily understood as nucleated appendages than as cytoplasmic 
extensions from the small carpogonia. We shall have to recast our con- 
ception of the female sexual organ of the red algae. Instead of being a 
4}. uninucleate cell (oocyst) with a filamentous cytoplasmic receptive out- 
s growth, we shall probably have at least a two-nucleate structure with the 
 trichogyne obviously very much like a second cell in the organ. 
4 These complications, puzzling at first thought, may clear up some very 
\ difficult problems of morphology. I refer to the multicellular trichogynes 
tie of the lichens and Laboulbeniaceae. They will not seem to be so far 
-» 8 removed from the female organs of the red algae if trichogyne nuclei prove 
) ” to be general, and we may come to regard them as the highest expressions 
of this growth tendency on the part of a primitive type of unicellular organ. 
BLACKMAN’SS recent investigations in the Uredinales indicate that female 
i sexual organs are present in some forms (e. g., Phragmidium), and the 
a presence of a sterile cell above the fertile is wonderfully suggestive of a 
2 - trichogyne. All the female organs with multicellular trichogynes form a 
-\ group quite by themselves, and apparently without relation to other mul- 
 ticellular sexual organs (gametangia). Since the cells are probably con- 
nected with one another by broad strands of cytoplasm, the physiological 
conditions may be very close to those of multinucleate sexual organs 
(coenogametes). 
The sperm (spermatium) of Nemalion is formed singly in the spermat- 
ocyst and leaves this structure as a uninucleate naked or thin-wal 
mass of protoplasm. But before fertilization the original nucleus of the 
sperm divides with a mitotic figure, so that two male nuclei are formed 
'- and both enter the trichogyne. SCHMIDLE reported binucleate sperms 
, in Batrachospermum, and some of my own figures show the same conditions, 
* which, however, I explained as phenomena of fragmentation. It is evi- 
dent that the sperm discharged from the spermatocyst (antheridium) 
or onstage sdeetes at 
PO am, li ae ~~ udhorine. - 
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\) 
j 2 Davis, B. M., Ann. Botany 10:49. 1896. 
\ 3 SCHMIDLE, Bot. Zeit. 5'7:125. 1890. 
! 4 OsTERHOUT, Flora 87:109. 1900. 
| 5 BLACKMAN, Ann. Botany 18: 323. 1904. 
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