The Nardoo Plant 145 



is now blue precipitated by iodine, and thereafter the cell- 

 walls. Alcohol draws from the softened contents of the cells 

 water, and precipitates them as a granular sediment. The 

 cell-walls and inner utricles remain intact and collapsed. 

 With acetic acid the gelatinous mass coagulates. The 

 reagents, which indicate combinations of nitrogen, remain 

 without influence on the gelatinous contents and walls of 

 the cells. 



This gelatinous substance arrays itself consequently in 

 the group of cellulose, although it remains characterised by 

 its extreme power of endosmosis, and its absolute inability 

 to diffuse itself in water through the cell-walls. It ap- 

 proaches nearest to the kinds of mucus from the exterior 

 cells of seed teguments described by Hofmeister, in den 

 Berichten der Koeniglich Saechsischen Gesellschaft der 

 Wissenschaften, 1858, p. 18, and by Cramer, in his pflanzen- 

 physiologischen Untersuchungen, fasc. III., p. 1. These, 

 however, are generally distinct metamorphic productions of 

 cell- walls and of a distinct structure, whereas the Marsilea 

 mucus is deposited as an homogenous interior mass within 

 the cavity of the cell A chemical analysis could not be 

 instituted with the scanty quantity available. 



The rapid dissemination of the spores is consequently 

 effected by the deposition of a strongly endosmotic substance 

 within cellular tissue, of which the walls by folds attain 

 such a dimension as to expand within a short period to their 

 200 fold volumen. The cells of the indusia are empty in the 

 dry state, but finely rugulose. They are only passively 

 extended by the expanding ring and sporangia. 



Since the rapid expansion of the contents of the fruit 

 experimented upon, rendered it likely that the spores were 

 fit for germination, every care was bestowed on them, and 

 this not without success. The prothallia developed them- 

 selves, not only of those fruits which burst under ordinary 

 temperature, but, to my surprise, a development was also 

 noticed, of the spores of those fruits which had been exposed 

 to the temperature of boiling water for a quarter of an hour, 

 the exclusion of the water having left the contents of the 

 spores chemically and physically unaltered. In one instance 

 the emanation of the spores from the indusia was already in 

 force after twelve hours. The sporangia burst ; microspores 

 (androspores) protruded by the expanding gelatinous 

 covering, collected before the orifice of the indusium on the 

 surface of the water, and sank after the solution of the latter, 



