286 RHODOPHYCEE. 
Chantransia compacta. Raljs. Ann. Nat. Hist. 1851, p. 304. 
Plant minute, hemispherical, inky-green, firm; filaments 
much branched, joints twice as long as broad, branches erecto- 
patent. 
Size. Not stated. 
On aquatic plants. 
“Tt forms very minute hemispherical tufts or fronds of a dark colour, 
and very much resembles a Rivularia in appearance; the fronds are so 
firm as to require considerable pressure in order to separate the fila- 
ments for microscopic examination, Filaments comparatively stout, 
rigid, much branched at the base, horizontal and interlacing. Branches 
crowded, erecto-patent ; joints about twice as long as broad, but the 
lower ones frequently shorter. Capsules orbicular, numerous, lateral, 
arising from all parts of the plant, and usually on short stalks. Differs 
from C. chalybea in its compact, firm habit; more crowded branches, 
shorter joints and more scattered capsules.”—Ralfs. 
Probably this is C. pygme@a, but we have seen no specimen. 
Famiry III.—BATRACHOSPERMEA. 
Diecions alge. Thallus filamentous, articulate, branched, 
violet, or violet-purple or bluish-green, covered with mucous ; 
primary filament and branches composed of a single central 
series of cells, and numerous external parallel continuous or in- 
terrupted secondary series; either furnished with globosely or 
subglobosely densely conglobate tufts, of equally distant verti- 
cillate fascicles of branches, or everywhere densely covered with 
simple or forked branches. Vegetation terminal. 
Genus. 119. BATRACHOSPERMUM. Roth. (1800.) 
Thallus moniliform, composed of a simple series of medullary 
cells, and a cortical accessory parallel series, clothed with sub- 
globosely clustered fascicles of branches, which latter are some- 
times more or less dispersed. 
Professor Horatio Wood has abstracted so well what is known of the 
reproductive process in the Batrachosperms that we cannot do better 
than quote his observatiors in full: “Frequently in well-advanced 
Batrachosperms there will be seen scattered among the glomerules large 
round, firm, dense balls, composed of a great number of small closely 
attached cells. These are the reproductive bodies. According to Graf 
zu Solms Laubach (‘Botanische Zeitung,” 1867, p. 161), they are the 
result of sexual reproduction, and are developed from ‘ antheridia’ and 
‘ trichogonia’ (female organs) in the following manner :— 
“ The antheridia are small roundish cells fall of a colourless proto- 
plasm, which is remarkable for the very numerons bright granules which 
it contains. They occur either scattered, or in groups, and are placed 
