CONFERVOID FILAMENTS OF MOSSES. 569 



with those of neighbouring plants. These have been known as the " confervoid fila- 

 ments," or " confervoid radicles " (PI. LVII. fig. 1). 



Formerly they were not recognized as belonging to the Mosses, and were at one time 

 very decidedly claimed by algologists *, under the name of " Frotonema." We owe to 

 Kiitzing the discovery that Protonema is not an Alga, but the joroduct of Mosses f, 

 although, before him, it was not unknown that Mosses did produce confervoid filaments 

 from their spore J. Subsequently Schimper, in his excellent work on the Mosses §, 

 confirmed the correctness of this observation of Kutzing, and more fully traced the 

 development and growth of the confervoid filaments from the spore, and the " propa- 

 gule," and the origin of the leafy axis from them. As far as my observations have 

 proceeded in this direction, they coincide with those of Schimper, and therefore I must 

 refer those interested in the sul^ject to his work. 



Now Kutzing, in his ' Phycologia GeneraHs,' retains the group Protonemese, and of 

 them he says, "They are Confervse nearly allied to CladopJiora. They are particu- 

 larly distinguished by growing out of water, by pushing their roots into the earth, as 

 the Mosses do, and by never developing their fruit between the branches of the thread, 

 but either on the end of the same or on one side." He gives two genera, Frotonema 

 and Gongrosira. Their characters he describes as follows : — 



1. Protonema. 



Trichomata radicantia, parenchymatica, ramosa, coelogonimica. Gonidia in lineas 

 longitudinales disjDOsita ; spermatia pedunculata, lateralia. 



2. Gongrosira. 



Trichomata radicantia, parenchymatica, ramosa, apice demum torulosa. Articuli 

 ultimi demum in spermatia ternainalia transeuntes. 



That Gongrosira is also derived from the same origin seems clear to me ; certainly G. 

 clavata (Kutzing), called by Dillwyn Conferva nmlticapsularis, and recognized as such 

 by Kiitzing himseK, is of moss-origin. So also is G.sclerococcus ('Phycologia Generalis,' 

 tab. xvii. fig. 8), so far as can be judged from the figure given. 



Besides these Protonemese, there is another allied family given by Kiitzing — Chan- 

 transiese. In this is included the genus Chroolepm, the characters of which are thus 

 given : — 



" Trichomata cartilaginea, colorata, polygonimica, ramosa. Spermatia nunc lateralia, 

 nunc terminalia." 



That some of the forms figured under this name belong to the confervoid filaments of 

 a Moss I think highly probable. 



The plate of Chroolepus (tab. vii. fig. 2) certainly resembles a condition which the 

 moss-growth assumes. 



* See Eng. Bot. " Protonema" and Dillwyn's Synopsis of British Confervse. 



t Kiitzing, Phycologia Generahs ; and Limisea, Band viii. (1833). 



J Hedwig, Fundamenta Muscorum, vol. ii. pp. .50, 51. Drummond, Trans. Linnean Soc. vol. xiii. p. 1. Fr. L. 

 Nees d'Esenbeck, Nov. Act. Acad. C. L.-C. vol. xiii. Cassebeer, Entvpicklung der Laubmoose. Meyen, Pflanzen- 

 physiologie, t. iii. p. 403. Gottsche on Haplomitrium Hookeri, Nov. Act. Acad. Cses. L.-C. N. C. vol. xx. p. 1. 



§ Recherches sur les Mousses, 1848. 



4g2 



