90 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS 
become reduced in size and has become exceedingly active, the 
cilia, with which each is provided, being effective organs of loco- 
motion. A careful consideration of these facts will make it evi- 
dent that a great advance has taken place in a particular direc- 
tion in this method of reproduction. Coincident with this there 
has arisen a tendency towards the disappearance of the asexual 
mode of reproduction. 
Before leaving the Algz, reference should be made to the 
Chara, a very common fresh water form. In this plant the 
organs of reproduction have attained a high degree of perfection. 
So far as these organs are concerned, the Characez are not less 
highly specialized than are many of the so-called higher plants. 
The completeness of the organs of reproduction make it some- 
what difficult to assign this order of plants to its proper place in 
the course of plant evolution. 
Up to this point attention has been directed to the Alge, or 
lower green plants, only. There is, however, a large number of low- 
er plants not included in this division known as the Fungi. These 
plants are either parasitic or saprophytic, and on that account are 
modified in such a way as to present almost insuperable difficul- 
ties to the evolutionist. From physiological considerations it 
may at once be conceded that they are of later origin than the 
Alge, and hence must be treated as a branch which came 
from the parent stem at a later period than the Alge. Among 
the Fungi there occurs a mode of reproduction essentially similar 
to that found in the unicellular Algw. The cell multipheation 
by budding occurring in the Yeast plant is an example of this 
simple mode of reproduction. 
When, however, the attempt is made to trace the progress 
of the evolution of these plants by an examination of their re- 
productive organs we are able to go only a very short distance 
until we reach a point where these organs disappear. In the 
Mucor mucedo, one of the common moulds, a conjugation occurs 
very similar to that occurring in the Spirogyra, indicating that 
the evolution in these two classes of plants has taken place along 
similar lines. In the fungous part of the lichens, at least in some 
