TERMINOLOGY OF REPRODUCTIVE ORGANS OF PLANTS. 27 
sexual union. I confess I cannot see why, because the 
sexual process is a complicated one and the resulting 
products are derived only indirectly from the uniting cells, — 
botanists fight shy of acknowledging the essentially sexual 
origin of these products. The question really is, are 
ascospores and carpospores to be considered as sexually- 
produced cells or are they not? If they are, why employ 
the suffix spore in describing them? If they are not, what 
is the meaning of the complicated sexual process preceding 
their formation? That the so-called ‘“‘cystocarp” is a 
parasitic asexual generation is, it seems to me, by no 
means certain. 
Further, a spore in the sense in which I understand the 
term, viz. a cell produced by vegetative process, and 
neither directly nor indirectly connected with sexual 
union, is surely always, at least physiologically, the same 
though there may be slight morphological differences 
consistent with the varying habit of the plant and the 
nature of the environment. The mode of formation of 
what I venture to consider true spores, certainly differs in 
different plants—as for example in Mucor and Laminaria, 
but these differences are connected with the morphological 
and physiological characteristics of the plant in question 
and surely not with the product—the spore itself. 
I have always endeavoured to teach that the megaspores 
and microspores of the Heterosporous Vascular Crypto- 
gams are really not spores at all, save when first formed. 
When ripe they are, or at least contain, structures which 
are multicellular and comparable to the prothallus of the 
Fern. How then can we employ the term spore (= cell) 
to a multicellular body, whether by its habit and in 
obedience to heredity it be enclosed within the primitive 
spore-cell wall or. not. Both are most obviously rudi- 
mentary gamophytes. 
