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This beautiful species, the filaments of which oscillate very 
vividly, is an extremely interesting object under the microscope. 
The curved ends of the filaments may then be seen to move in a 
spiral direction, showing that this is the real motion of the 
filaments, though they may appear to an inattentive observer to 
have merely a waving lateral movement. Without the sanction 
and kind assistance of Mr. Berkeley, I should scarcely have 
ventured to describe this and the foregoing species as new, but he 
has kindly compared them with authentic specimens in his own 
herbarium, and considers them hitherto undescribed. Thw. 
Pruate CCLI. C. 
OscILLATORIA énsignis ; stratum of a dark brown, almost black colour ; 
filaments brown, of considerable diameter, their apices obtuse, 
slightly oblique, and ciliated. S¢rie conspicuous, very close; endo- 
chrome distinctly granulose. 
Has. Ina brackish ditch at Shirehampton near Bristol, in Nov. 1848. 
G. H. K. Thwaites. 
Descr. Stratum thin, covering decaying vegetable matter at the bottom of the 
ditch in which it occured, with a dark brown coating, becoming somewhat 
greenish in drying. Silaments very large, rather brittle; their apices 
rounded, somewhat oblique and furnished with numerous delicate motionless 
cilia. Lndochrome distinctly granulose; the granules beimg principally 
evident close to the strize, which they render more conspicuous. 
Arr 
POR 
The cilia which terminate the filaments of this fine species, are 
not peculiar to it alone. Professor Kitzimg has figured mm his 
“ Phycologia Generalis”’ similar appendages to the filaments of 
Oscillaria subfusca, and has noted their occurrence in another 
species. Careful observation shews that these cilia have no 
proper motion of their own, and therefore can exercise no agency 
on the movements of the filaments; they appear to be mere 
appendages, or terminations of the membranous tube, and to 
perform no important function in the economy of the plant. Zw. 
