ARCHER ON A NEW SPECIES OF BULBOCHiETE, AGARDH. 1 1 



In the gynandrosporous forms, on the other hand, on the female 

 plants there are formed certain short cells (usually not so short, how- 

 ever, as the antheridial cells of the monoecious and dioecious species ; 

 that is, they are nearly quadrate in outline), either one alone or several 

 in a series; from the whole contents of each of these cells (without any 

 septum being produced), there is formed "a single zoospore, smaller, 

 indeed, than the ordinary zoospores, but otherwise quite like them in 

 structure. Each of these, too, escapes by the dehiscence of the parent 

 cell, and shortly settles down upon some part of the female plant, defi- 

 nite for the species, and there germinates, giving rise to a little structure, 

 either unicellular or with a transverse septum (an " inner" antheridium, 

 Pringsheim), or by vegetative growth this produces a little dwarf fila- 

 ment, with a basal or "foot-cell," and several antheridial cells, like 

 those of the ordinary male filaments, only far more minute (an " outer" 

 antheridium, Pringsheim), and their contents in both kinds produce each 

 an antherozoid. This motile body, which I have momentarily called a 

 zoospore, Pringsheim denominates an " androspore," because it does not 

 produce a young ordinary filament, but a minute dwarf male plant. 



In all the modes of fructification the female element consists of an 

 " oogonium," formed from an enlarged or expanded ordinary vegetative 

 cell, dedicated thereto, and, according to the particular case, present- 

 ing a variety of details as to form, position, and origin. The access of 

 the antherozoid to the germ-cell, or primordial cell within (Befrucht- 

 iiDgskugel, Pringsheim), is permitted either by means of a minute la- 

 teral aperture, frequently bounded by a lip-like margin, or by a circum- 

 scissile slit ; the mature germ-cell becomes an " oospore." Itwouldbe un- 

 necessary here to enter more closely into a detail of the precise particulars 

 of the fructification, or of the interesting plan of vegetative growth proper 

 to these pretty and most interesting plants. Such would almost involve 

 a translation in full of Pringsheim' s splendid memoir; but, if the brief 

 particulars here given should enable the meeting the more readily to un- 

 derstand the description of the following new species of .Bulbochsete, 

 they will have served their purpose. Yet the remarks of Pringsheim 

 bearing on the relation of the gynandrosporous to the ordinary monoe- 

 cious and dioecious plan of fructification seem to me to be so instruc- 

 tive, that I venture to add here a translation of the following few lines, 

 adhering as closely as possible to his own words :* — 



" If we look more closely into the value of these dwarf forms, and 

 try to define the mode of distribution of the sexes which is expressed in 

 those species in which these dwarf forms occur, we might be inclined 

 to regard the mother-cells of the androspores — which occur in the 

 female plants, and which, as we have seen, are not distinguishable from 

 the true antheridium-cells of the monoecious and dioecious species — as a 

 male sexual apparatus ; and, accordingly, we might look upon the plants, 

 which produce the oogonia as well as the mother- cells of the andro- 



* " Morphologie der GEdogonien," in " Jahrbiicher fur wissensch. Botanik," Band I., 

 p. 42. 



