En 
distinct layers were present, separated in the young sporangium by a boundary 
line, in ripe ones by a less refringent intermediary layer. The walls separating the 
spores were in continuity with the innermost layer of the sporangium. The division 
was tetrahedrical. The ripe sporangium was 53 « long, 44 w broad. 
The heaps of paraspores have, as mentioned above, often been confounded 
with the cystocarps and described as naked favellæ, but they have nothing to do 
with the female sexual organs. According to Scumirz and HAUPTFLEISCH (ENGL. u. 
PRANTL p. 493) they occur only in the tetraspore-bearing specimens; the only tetra- 
sporiferous specimen I have found bore 
paraspores at the same time. The heaps 
of paraspores have further a similar posi- 
tion to that of the tetraspores, namely on 
the end ofthe pinnulæ, and it has there- 
fore been supposed that they were mo- 
dified tetrasporangia (comp. OLTMANNS 
Morph. p. 667). This interpretation is, 
however, in my opinion unjustified. 
While the tetrasporangia are from the 
first dark-red, darker than the vegetative 
cells, the young heaps of paraspores are 
lighter, as emphasized by BurrHam (1893 
p. 303) and as it is visible in Prines- 
HEIM'S figures (1862, figs. 3—5), and as 
shown in my fig. 288. Further, the outer 
wall has another constitution. It is to 
begin with similar to that of the vege- 
Fig. 288. 
tative cells, STOWS gradually thicker and Plumaria elegans. Heaps of paraspores. A—C, young 
may sometimes be indistinctly lamellate stages, feebly coloured. D, eight-celled stage, the chro- 
4 matophores more coloured. E and F, stage of maturation, 
but it is often homogeneous and is in in E about 16 spores. 390 : 1. 
continuity with the separating walls be- 
tween the cells of the heap. An end-cell that will develop into a heap of para- 
spores is distinguishable by its feebler colour and by indistinct chromatophores, 
while the nucleus appears very distinct. The cell is usually divided by an oblique 
wall and the daughter-cells are further divided. In the four-celled stage the cells 
are still rather feebly coloured. During the further divisions the paraspore-heap grows 
out to a roundish, more or less irregular ovate or obovate or obcordate body and 
the chromatophores become gradually more distinct and take a deeper red colour. 
8-celled and 16-celled heaps are comparatively often met with, but other numbers 
too occur, f. inst. 5, 6, 12. According to BurrHam the number of spores at maturity 
is 16, and it is certainly frequently so, but I have found at least 18 spores, and in 
other cases maturity seems to arrive when the number of cells is much lower, as in 
the four-celled heap represented in fig. 288 F. 
