,')•'> 



recent investigators, serves to indicate the artificiality of the tra- 

 ditional classification. 



The clearer lines of descent of the chief groups of Chloro- 

 phyceae from the unicellular, motile Chlauiydomonas were traced ; 

 the first tendency, in the direction of aggregations of motile cells, 

 finding its highest expression in Volvox ; the second tendenc)-, in 

 the direction of septate cell division, to form non-motile bodies of 

 increasing solidarity, leading through the Tetrasporaceae to the 

 Ulvaceae (which have been placed in a separate order, Ulvales, 

 by some recent authors), and finally, through such forms as 

 Stichococcns, to the typical filamentous and branched forms culmi- 

 nating in ColeocJiactc. The third, or Endosphaerine tendency from 

 Cldmnydonwnas, as suggested by Blackman, was held by the 

 speaker to furnish an unsatisfactory origin for the Siphoneae, in- 

 asmuch as the endophytic forms associated with Hndosphaera may 

 be regarded as too specialized in their mode of life at least. It 

 is much more natural to derive the Siphoneae from the septate, 

 multinucleate Cladophoraceae. The latter group may well be 

 regarded as an intermediate order, easily derived from the Ulo- 

 trichaceae through such forms as Honniscia i^Urospora) and Rlii- 

 zoclonuim. 



The recent proposition of Bohlin and Blackman to regard the 

 Oedogoniaceae as forming a class derived from a separate uni- 

 cellular ancestor is at least premature, and it does not appear at 

 all impossible that this group may have been derived from a 

 Ulothnx-\\V& form as suggested by Oltmanns. The Conjugatae 

 furnish a perplexing problem, but the speaker preferred to regard 

 this group as forming an order of Chlorophyceae rather than as 

 a separate class, in view of present e\'idence. 



Edw.vrd W. Berry, 



Sccrctarv. 



NEWS ITEMS 

 The tenth annual winter meeting of the Vermont Botanical Club 

 was held at Burlington. January 18-19, with President Ezra 

 Brainerd of Middlebury College in the chair. Twenty-two papers 



