114 INTRODUCTION TO CRYPTOGAMIC BOTANY. 



1. Palmelle^. Due. Kutz. Mont. Harv. (Protococcoidece 

 Endl.) Cells free, or surrounded by a gelatinous mass, some- 

 times stipitate, propagated by the division of the endochrome, 

 which is mostly quaternary, and sometimes transformed into 

 zoospores. 



94?. The essential foundation of every vegetable is a cell : the 

 very simplest mode therefore of vegetable life which can be 

 conceived, is that of a mass of free cells increased either by 

 partition of the endochrome, or by pullulation from the sides, 

 as in the yeast plant. The two modes, however, seem to indi- 

 cate two separate types, which may diverge from a common 

 point so as to produce distinct series, while in other cases 

 both modes of increase may be united in the same indivi- 

 dual. No true Palmelloid will increase its cells by pullu- 

 lation, and therefore in the very outset such productions as the 

 yeast plant will be looked upon with suspicion — suspicion 

 which is more than confirmed by an intimate study of its dif- 

 ferent stages of development. There are, moreover, other pro- 

 ductions, as Pahnella prodigiosa, which, from their peculiar 

 habit, seem rather to indicate affinity with fungi. The rapi- 

 dity with which Palmella lorodigiosa spreads over meat, 

 boiled vegetables, or even decapng Agarics, is quite astonishing, 

 making them appear as if spotted with arterial blood ; and what 

 increases the illusion is, that there are little detached specks, 

 exactly as if they had been squirted in jets from a small artery. 

 The particles of which the substance is composed, have an active 

 molecular motion, but the morphosis of the production has not 

 yet been properly observed, and till that is the case it will be 

 impossible to assign its place rightly in the vegetable world.* 

 Its resemblance to the gelatinous specks which occur on mouldy 

 paste, or raw meat in an incipient state of decomposition, satisfy 

 me that it is not properly an Alga. Neglecting these, we have 

 still a multitude of species, varying greatly in colour, and some- 

 times assuming tints of red, blue, and yellow, with an admix- 

 ture of olive, produced, too, in situations where Alga3 and not 

 Fungi are to be expected, which, from their simple struc- 



* See Stephens iu Auu. of Nat. Hist., p. 409 ; and Berk, in Gard. 

 Chron., 1853, p. 515. 



