184- INTKODUCTION TO CKYPTOGAMIG BOTANY. 



Stygeoclonium, however, the endochrome sometimes puts on 

 another appearance, and is divided into new endoehromes, 

 after -the fashion of some of the simple Algae, and in Choeto- 

 2)hora, as first discovered by myself, when a very young 

 botanist, near Dunstaffnage Castle, the threads are studded 

 with globose lateral cysts. Miiller* informs us that in C. 

 tuberculosa, he has repeatedly seen two kinds of cysts, one 

 scarlet, and constituting antheridia, the other larger, and at 

 length producing spores. He further asserts that the female 

 cysts germinate, that the protruded thread is at length incor- 

 porated with the elongated antheridium, and that reproductive 

 spores are generated by the mixture of the two endoehromes. 

 This requires confirmation, and the more so, because what he 

 describes as the process of germination and development 

 evidently belongs to some Rivularia. Kiitzing-f- considers 

 his report as fabulous, and I am inclined to adopt his opinion. 

 He confirms his observations, however, so far as the female 

 cysts are concerned. Processes distinct from the branches 

 were many years since pointed out to me, by Mr. Broome, in 

 Gladophora glomerata, but not in such a condition as to con- 

 vince me that they were really fruit. 



107. Having once obtained a sporangial form of fi-uit, the 

 transition to those plants wliich Kutzing has placed in a separate 

 section, under the name of Chantransioi, is very easy. Ghlo- 

 rotylium, which has, I believe, been found in Great Britain, is 

 a higher form of Chcetophora, with a differentiation of certain 

 joints after the manner of Stygeoclonium, and frait like that of 

 (JIuBtoplwra. The fertile joints form concentric zones, in the 

 convex gelatinous mass, according, probably, with successive 

 periods of growth. Chantransia, which has clusters of such 

 cysts, is distinguished by a purple tint, and approaches Calli- 

 thartinion in habit, while Chroolepus differs from all in its 

 golden colour (changing, however, in the herbarium, to grey- 

 ish green), and its affecting damp walls, trunks of trees, leaves, 

 and other objects, and never, I believe, growing in water. The 

 fruit of these plants wants further study. Gongroseira is at 

 present imperfectly known, but if Kutzing's account be quite 



* Flora, 1842, p. 513, tab. 3. 



t Phycol. Gen. p. 325, tab. 10, fig. ii. 



