168 INTRODUCTION TO CRYPTOGAMIC BOTANY. 



lata, Ag. fil.), occur with others which are entire and cylin- 

 drical, flexuous and spiral. An inspection of any extensive 

 collection of species from different locahties will suggest many 

 more examples. 



2. RHODOSPERME^.— iTam 



Fix) RIDGES, Lamx., Mont, — Floridi^e, Ag., J. Ag. Endl. — Choristo- 

 spoRKs:, Becaisne. 



E.OSECOLOURED or purple, seldom inclining to green or brown. 

 Fruit of two kinds ; indefinite spores in distinct nuclei, either 

 naked, in conceptacles, or inclosed in the substance of the plant ; 

 or tetraspores, external or immersed, scattered over the frond, 

 or in distinct organs. AntJieridia at present only partially 

 observed. 



144. It has been already stated that the genus Chantransia, 

 leads dhectly to the blood-coloured Algse, known under the 

 name of Rhodosperms. The remark may, however, be ex- 

 tended to those associated genera as Batrachospermumi, which 

 produce the fruit in the form of moniliform threads, of which 

 the upper joints are so many spores or sporesacs. The fruit of 

 Lemanea is precisely of the same nature, and quite different 

 from anything which has before occurred amongst the Chloro- 

 sperms. The anomalous genus Chroolepus, the threads of which 

 in one state are orange, in another green, seems to oscillate be- 

 tween the two divisions of Chlorosperms and Rhodosperms. A 

 few species only, of a comparatively simple structure, occupy the 

 surface of barren rocks, occasionally sprinkled with the spray. 

 CallitJiamnion Rothii is next in point of aerial habits, though 

 periodically immersed, and to this succeeds a host of branched 

 filiform species which avail themselves of almost any support 

 which offers, provided it be immersed sufficiently long to sus- 

 tain their vital energies. Whether any of the still simpler 

 forms of Algse really belong or not to this division, can only 



