THE HIGHER CRYPTOGAMIA. 331 



the microscope, spherical or elongated ellipsoidal cells may 

 be seen to escape from the fissures between the cells of the 

 wall as they part asunder. These spherical or ellipsoidal 

 cells are divided by delicate septa into from two to six com- 

 partments, filled with finely granular mucilage, in which 

 one or several nuclei float. Afterwards each compartment 

 contains from one to four free roundish cellules. Each of 

 these cellules encloses a spiral thread, a spermatozoon, which 

 after its escape by the rupture of the wall of the cellule 

 moves about actively in the water. Many of these cellules 

 ■ — those namely which are less developed — contain, instead 

 of the spiral thread, a transparent vesicle (or nucleus ?) in 

 the centre, in the interior of which dark spherical lumps of 

 mucilage (nucleoli ?) are sometimes visible. By careful 

 dissection of microsporangia under the microscope at the 

 beginning of March, I succeeded in separating entire the 

 inner cell membranes of the microspores from the glutinous 

 contents of the microsporangia, which consisted of the de- 

 tached and agglomerated exosporia of the microspores. 

 When isolated they appeared in the shape of cellules already 

 extended to an oval form, having a major axis of 175 

 m.m.m., with turbid granular contents, and a spherical trans- 

 parent nucleus (PI. XLIV, fig. 26). In the latter half of 

 March the contents of the microsporangia are pultaceous : 

 the cellules lie free in the granular mucilage of the interior, 

 which is brownish green under transmitted light. By this 

 time the contents of the cellules are transparent, and most 

 of them are divided transversely (PL XLIV, fig. 5). Further 

 divisions lead to the formation of a multicellular oval body, 

 the antheridium, in the compartments of which the sperma- 

 tozoa are formed in the interior of spherical vesicles (PI. 

 XLIV, figs. 27 — 30). By using higher powers of the 

 microscope, it may be seen that the cilia of the spermatozoa, 

 which are less numerous than in the Polypodiacese, are of 

 unusual length (PL XLIV, figs. 31, 32). The movements 

 of the spermatozoa are exactly like those of the spermatozoa 

 of the Polypodiacese, so far as regards the direction and the 

 rapidity of the motion. 



I have several times in different years found spermatozoa 

 of this kind swimming about in the water in which Salvinia 



