﻿OF THE STATE OF GEORGIA. 67 



economy of this plant. According to the above expressed views I would define 

 ^Chlamidococcus as a plant formed by a successively deliquescent and evanescent thallus, 

 each vegetative cell of which is free, is endowed with an independent motion (produced by 

 two lengthened flagelliform appendages) and has an independent life. Each new gene- 

 ration of four cells being accompanied by the destruction of the precedingly formed 

 part of the thallus which has produced it. The terminal (or last formed) cells of 

 this vague thallus produce globular, fixed, unappendaged red spores. These spores con- 

 tain from two to six large grains of amylon and a central cytoblast. The fully- 

 developed evanescent parenchym ? cells of the thallus? are green, with a red central - 

 (not parietal) mass, in the middle of which is situated the cell nucleus. 



In an aberrant form this alga constitutes a continuous, non-evanescent thallus, in 

 which the cells are globular, unappendiculated, and united by an amorphous inter- 

 cellular substance. This discoid thallus produces at its periphery (surface), spores 

 identical with those generated by the typical form. 



I believe the above definition to be consistent with the strictest laws of analogy, as 

 applied to the morphology of the lower plants ; if I have erred, I shall be sufficiently 

 rewarded for my labors if I should have attracted the attention of other naturalists, 

 and induced them to take up the study of this interesting branch of natural history. 



Linnaeus has said, " Nullus character infallibilis est ;" but however little encouraging 

 this maxim may seem, it must not dishearten nature's votary, who can only describe 

 things to the best of his abilities, in a way concordant with the present state of 

 science, and who must ever remember that perfection is the attribute of the Creator, 

 not of the creature, and that human science is only a very small, fragmentary, shape- 

 less particle of Omniscience, which last is beyond his reach, 



