26 LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
99 66 
point, else why permit ‘“ prothalliwm,” “‘indusium,”’ and 
such like terms to retain their primitive ‘‘uncouth”’ form. 
I think the authors have done rightly in restricting the 
use of the term “‘spore.’’ Their definition of the term is 
as follows :—‘‘any cell produced by ordinary processes of 
vegetation, and not directly by a union of sexual elements, 
which becomes detached for the purpose of direct vege- 
tative propagation.” The authors then proceed to qualify 
this general term by certain prefixes which I cannot but 
think are unnecessary. ‘‘The simple term spore will,’ 
they write, ‘“‘for the sake of convenience, be retained in 
Muscinee and Vascular Cryptogams; but in the Thallo- 
phytes it will generally be used in the form of one of those 
compounds to which it so readily lends itself, expressive 
of the special character of the organ in the class in question. 
Thus in the Protophyta we have chlamydospores ; in the 
Myxomycetes, sporangiospores ; in the Saprolegniee and 
many Algee, zoospores; in the Uredinex, telewtospores, 
ecidiospores, wredospores, and sporids; in the Basidio- 
mycetes, basidiospores; in the Ascomycetes (including 
Lichenes), ascospores, polyspores, and merispores ; in the 
Diatomacess, auxospores; in the Cidogoniaces, andro- 
spores; in the Floridee, tetraspores; and others belonging 
to special groups. The cell in which the spores are formed 
will, in almost all cases, be called a sporange ; and this 
term will be compounded in the same way as spore.” 
In Messrs. Bennett and Murray’s definition of the 
term ‘“‘spore”’ the qualifying word “‘directly”’ is obviously 
inserted to enable the authors to include under - that 
category such reproductive cells as the so-called ‘‘asco- 
spores’’ of the Ascomycetes and the “‘carpospores”’ of the 
higher Alge. In these cases, however, as every botanist 
knows, the so-called ‘‘spores’ in question, though not 
directly, are in reality indirectly products or results of 
