GERMINATION OF SPORES OF CONOCEPHALUM CONICUM 46 1 
in a paper packet for thirty-six days were sown on tap water and placed 
in moderate light. For a few days there seemed to be no development, 
though there was a significant distention and a marked suggestion of 
chlorophyll development in individual sporelings. No certain evidence of 
the development of thalli was observed in this culture for several days, but 
within a week or so, probably as many as ten percent of the sown sporelings 
began to develop further. However, the greater number of those sporelings 
which developed thalli formed no primary rhizoids (figs. 16, 17). This 
would seem to indicate that, as Cavers (2) and BoUeter (i) have reported, 
the cells which normally develop rhizoids are more susceptible to desicca- 
tion than are the other cells of the sporelings. A very small percentage of 
these dried sporelings, nevertheless, developed in an apparently perfectly 
normal way. 
Effect of Artificial Conditions 
In the material collected in the fall, very little change was noted as late 
as December 15, when some of the sporelings of the collection made in 
November were sown on water. Sporelings from plants collected in. late 
October, after being indoors nearly three months, were sown, but only a 
very small number of these showed a history of growth, cell division, and 
the development of rhizoids similar to that described below. 
Of the sporelings collected in November, the majority developed after 
being sown. Many showed one primary rhizoid each, very few showed two, 
and some showed none (figs. 18, 19). The young thalli developed rapidly 
and all sent out secondary rhizoids, although the latter were proportionately 
few in number (figs. 20, 21) as compared with those of the thalli which 
developed from sporelings collected and sown in the spring (figs. 11, 15). 
Toward the end of December, the stalks of the carpocephala of the 
plants collected in November began to elongate, though slowly, until they 
were about two centimeters in length. There was also a corresponding 
lengthening of the setae of the sporophytes. During a period of ten days 
or more, there was no further advance toward spore dispersal. The capsules 
ruptured the calyptra and the enveloping sheath, but the setae did not 
elongate sufficiently to permit the ordinary dehiscence and sporeling dis- 
semination. Some of the sporelings from these capsules were sown, how- 
ever, and within less than thirty-six hours a few showed signs of develop- 
ment, and in time practically all of them developed as shown in figures 22-25. 
The plants collected on March 17 showed signs of the elongation of the 
stalks of the carpocephala on the second day after being brought into the 
laboratory. The old gametophytes developed each a new thallus by means 
of growth from the apical region. After these plants had been in the 
laboratory for a week, the stalks had grown still further, until on April 2 
some of them were as much as six centimeters in length. This was accom- 
panied by the lengthening of the setae of the sporophytes, the rupturing 
