TERMINOLOGY OF REPRODUCTIVE ORGANS OF CRYPTOGAMS. 413 
A Reformed System of Terminology of the Reproduc- 
tive Organs of the Cryptogamia. By Alfred W. 
Bennett, M.A., B.Sc., F.L.S., Lecturer on Botany at 
St. Thomas’s Hospital ; and George Murray, F.L.S., 
Assistant, Botanical Department, British Museum.^ 
We have been led to the following attempt at obtaining a 
symmetrical system of terminology among Cryptogams by the 
undoubted fact that the anomalies at present existing greatly 
retard the prosecution of the study of this most interesting 
group of plants. A more striking instance of the want of 
accuracy in the use of the commonest terms could not be 
afforded than by observing the different meanings, often 
quite irreconcilable with one another, applied by the most 
approved writers to the term spore.” Thus, Le Maout and 
Decaisne (Hooker’s edition of ^Descriptive and Analytical 
Botany,’ p. 14) and Professor Asa Gray Botanical Text- 
book,’ sixth edition, p. 434) speak of spores as the ana- 
logues of seeds Sachs Text-book,’ English edition, p. 203, 
but modified in the most recent German edition) defines 
them as asexual reproductive cells.” In direct opposition 
to each and both of these definitions, Berkeley Micrographic 
Dictionary,’ third edition, p. 327) describes the unfertilised 
ova or oospheres of Fucus as spores; and Huxley and Mar- 
tin Elementary Biology,’ p. 45) call the archegonium of 
Characese a spore-fruit or sporangium. A still more sin- 
gular example occurs in the most recent text-book of botany 
introduced to English readers (Vines’s edition of ^Prantl’s 
Text-book” where we read on one page (p. 97) Reproduc- 
tion of Cryptogams is effected asexually by cells termed 
gonidia, conidia, or spores;” and on another page (p. 115), 
“ Fungi are reproduced sexually by means of spores.” 
The object kept before us in this attempt at reform has 
been to arrive at a system which shall be symmetrical and 
in accordance with the present state of knowledge, and which 
shall, at the same time, interfere as little as possible with 
existing terms. In preparing such a system it has been 
impossible to avoid introducing several new^ terms, but these 
are associated with one another on an etymological plan 
which will not burden the memory of the student, while the 
total number of terms in cryptogamy will be greatly reduced 
’ Read at Ujc Swansea Meeiinff of the Rritisli Assoeiatioii, Aug. 2Ctli, 
1880. 
VOL, XX. —NEW SER. 
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