VALONIACEvE. 
47 
the outer of which are hyaline and homogeneous, the innermost traversed by parallel, 
longitudinal, anastomosing veinlets. Spores seriated in moniliform strings, and 
developed from the veinlets of the inner cell-wall (!) 
The highly curious little Alga on which the present genus is founded so closely 
resembles a Cladophora that it will readily pass for one, unless it be very closely examined 
under a powerful microscope. Indeed so great is the resemblance to a branched 
Conferva that I formerly distributed it to my friends with the manuscript name of 
Cladophora ccespitosa , under which it was my intention to have described it in the 
present work ; nor did I discover my error until I commenced making sketches for 
the plate now given. I was then first struck by the peculiar opacity of the dissepiments ; 
and afterwards by what looked like a compound cellular structure in the walls of the 
cells. On applying a higher power, other characters came out which induced me to 
dissect one of the articulations, when I discovered the curious structure of the inner 
membrane or primordial utricle ; in which (as far as I can make out) the spores are 
developed. To see the structure, as above described, the readiest mode is to proceed 
as follows. Cut off a portion of one of the long cells which terminate the branches ; 
place it on the table of a dissecting microscope, moisten it, and you may readily express 
the viscid endochrome, which generally contains, besides the usual starch and chloro- 
phyll grains, a number of pyramidal crystals ; but these are probably adventitious. 
When the endochrome has been pressed out, the structure of the inner membrane of 
the cell-wall may be partially seen ; but to see it clearly, the outer coats must be 
removed. This may readily be done, either by tearing, with a pair of dissecting 
needles, or by making a longitudinal section through the cell, when the different coats 
easily separate, on the section being teased in a drop of water. The outer coat, or 
coats (for there are two or more, though the secondary ones sometimes elude detec- 
tion, owing to their extreme tenuity) are quite transparent and structureless, as is 
usually the case in the walls of cellular tissue. But the inner coat offers a peculiarity 
of structure which I have not noticed in any other Algae, nor have heard of its occur- 
rence in the cells of any other plant. At first sight the membrane seems to be 
composed of numerous minute, elongated fusiform cellules, not unlike the wood-cells 
of phanerogamous plants, but totally unlike any algse-cells known to me. Careful 
examination has however convinced me that the "appearance of cellular structure is 
deceptive ; and that the membrane itself is homogenous, but traversed by slender 
filaments or nerves, which anastomose together, forming areolae which look like cells. 
These filaments give off free ramuli whose apices swell into spores ; and (probably) by 
repeated cell division produce the strings of roundish spores , which are so conspicuous 
in most of the areolae. The appearance of the whole membrane with its spores is as 
if a number of the asci of a lichen were placed side by side ; the true structure, 
however, I need hardly say, is widely different. 
The generic name is bestowed as a grateful tribute to the memory of the late 
Dr. Blodgett of Key West, who had zealously collected and studied the Algae of the 
reefs where this plant grows, and to whom I am indebted for many specimens of the 
rarest Algae of the Florida Keys. 
