426 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [june 



the plants were then present they must have been extremely 

 scarce. The plants were very abundant in the early part of July 

 1913. If a few solitary plants were present in 1909, it is apparent 

 that they must have multiplied rapidly in the following 4 years. 

 It is highly improbable, therefore, that any plants of Dumontia 

 were present at South Harpswell as early as 1905. 



Greville (i) in 1830 described fructifications which he had 

 observed in Dumontia filiformis. These fructifications were at- 

 tached to the inner surface of the wall of the thallus and consisted 

 of "clusters of large ovate seeds." It is evident from Greville's 

 description and figures that these "seeds" were carpospores. 

 Kutzing (5) published illustrations and a very brief description of 

 the tetraspores. Harvey (2) pictures a group of carpospores and 

 states that "clustered spores are common." Thuret (17) refers 

 to the antheridia of Dumontia, so at that time these bodies were 

 known to exist. The writer has not been able to find any descrip- 

 tion of the antheridia. All the papers published on the red algae 

 previous to 1883 dealt chiefly with the distribution and seasonal 

 occurrence of the various genera and the gross morphology of the 

 individuals. Schmitz's (13) paper in 1883 marks a greater step 

 in advance in the study of the red algae than has since been made 

 by any one investigator. Although his descriptions are not 

 complete, his general conception of the structure of the female 

 reproductive organs of Dudresnaya, Gloeosiphonia, and other 

 members of the Cryptonemiales is essentially correct in regard 

 to the cell history. His observations on Dudresnaya, Polyides, 

 and Petrocelis concerning the behavior of the nuclei in the 

 ooblastema filaments and auxiliary cells are correct. In Gloeo- 

 siphonia and some other genera Schmitz reports that the nucleus in 

 the cell which forms the carpospores is the product of two fusions. 



The structure of the female reproductive organs of the red algae is 

 quite complicated. The auxiliary cell, the cell which produces the 

 carpospores, in nearly all the genera is formed by the fusion of the 

 cytoplasm of two or more cells. The behavior of the nuclei in these 

 cells fusing to form the auxiliary cell proved to be a stumbling block 

 to Schmitz and many other workers, some of whom regarded the 

 nucleus in this cell as the product of as many as 6 fusions (Haupt- 



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