468 Scientific Proceedings, Royal Dublin Society. 



giving rise to a spore (see Yan Tieghem, Traits de Botanique, 

 p. 1133). 



There seems to me to be some little difficulty in accepting 

 Professor Bower's statement that the artificial production of proto- 

 nema and buds from cut pieces of the sporangium of certain 

 mosses is an example of apospory (see Journal Linn. 8oc., vol. xxi., 

 p. 366). It much more closely resembles the production of conidia 

 by certain Fungi under unfavourable conditions of growth, and is 

 thus blastogenesis. No mosses seem to produce a leafy axis directly 

 from a protonema developed by the ovum ; but looking at the con- 

 dition as possible, we may regard the development of the Characese 

 as exhibiting apospory ; and we can thus account for the absence 

 of spores in this most remarka,ble group. In the Characese the 

 fertilized ovum contains a rudimentary sporophore generation, 

 which by apospory forms the prothallus and lateral bud from 

 which the Chara plant arises. While thus regarding apospory as 

 probably wanting in the Bryophyta, Chara may be looked upon 

 as habitually aposporus. 



In Batrachospermum (Yan Tieghem, Traife de Botanique, p. 

 1185), where the spores (protospores, v. Th.) are suppressed, and 

 the ovum gives rise directly to a protonema, we have also a pro- 

 bable example of apospory, and an analogy indicated with Chara 

 and the Bryophyta. 



The Peronosporese, as we have just shown, exhibit apospory, 

 and it is remarkable that the next group, the Saprolegnese, exhibit 

 apogamy, direct development occurring in many of them without 

 the female cell being fertilized by the male celL If, therefore, 

 we have direct development without the formation of spores (apos- 

 pory), and direct development without the formation of the gyno- 

 gametes (apogyny), may we not also have direct development to a 

 limited extent of the male, the androgametophore or androgame- 

 tangium stage, and thus have apandry ? (For further remarks on 

 apandry and apogyny, see Yan Tieghem, Traite de Botanique, p. 

 966.) If we regard the sexual stage of the plant merely as the 

 oophore, we lose the significance of this development, where no 

 androgametes are formed, and the androgametangium, or even the 

 androgametophore, seems to develop directly. I would regard the 

 remarkable development of the male reproductive stage in the 

 pollen grain as apandry, and I would further consider that in the 



