646 
SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
passages in the Laminariaceae, taking as a favourable type Laminaria 
Cloustoni. He recommends for the fixing of the tissues a solution of 
clirome-alum in sea-water, and the mucilage can then be coloured by a 
variety of staining-reagents, — dahlia, methyl-violet, gentian-violet, or 
especially methyl-green acidulated by acetic acid. 
The only part of the frond where the muciferous canals are wanting 
is the generating zone between the perennial stipe and the annual 
lamina ; and it is at this point that the origin and the development of 
the canals which are formed on each side of it can be especially studied. 
They can be first detected in the form of lenticular cavities in the radial 
walls of cells belonging to the epidermal layer, which rapidly become 
filled with mucilage. These cavities are pushed into the cortical tissue 
by the growth and separation of the epidermal cells, and small cells 
containing a large nucleus buried in dense protoplasm, and presenting 
the characters of secreting cells, then become separated from their base. 
The mucilage-cavities then put out through the thickness of the cell- 
walls branches which enter into communication with one another, 
and thus form a connected net- work, on one side in the stipe, on the 
other side in the lamina. This net-work advances to a ards the surface, 
and even pushes apart the epidermal cells, but never breaks through the 
cuticle. They, therefore, never discharge their mucilage outside the 
frond. 
Special descriptions are given of the structure and arrangement of 
the muciferous canals in various species of Laminaria , Ecldonia, Alaria , 
Macrocystis, Lessonia, and other genera ; and the author concludes that 
their presence in the stipe only, or in the lamina only, or in both, or 
their entire absence, may be useful in furnishing specific, but not 
generic characters. 
Splachnidiaceae, a new order of Algae.* — Miss M. 0. Mitchell and 
Miss F. G. Whitting give a full description of SplacJinidium rugosum , 
a seaweed from the Cape of Good Hope, hitherto referred to the Fucaceae. 
A close examination of the alleged oogones shows that they differ from 
the structure of this organ in the Fucaceae in several important points, 
viz. in the very large number and small size of the “oospheres” (500- 
600) into which their contents break up ; in the absence of a pedicel ; 
and in the absence of an inner membrane within the wall of the “ oogone.” 
That they cannot be antherids is also shown by the very large number 
of “ antherozoids” ; by the large size of the “antherid ” ; and by their 
production directly from the cells lining the conceptacle. The authors 
regard them, on the other hand, as sporanges containing either zoospores 
which germinate directly, or conjugating zoogametes. The arguments 
in favour of this view are the large size of the sporange, its unilocular 
nature, and the persistence of the empty spore-cases. On these 
characters the authors propose to establish the new order Splachnidi- 
ACEiE, belonging to the Phaeophyceae, but affording a connecting link 
between the Laminariaceae and the Fucaceae. Its diagnosis will be as 
follows : — Algae olivaceae, per fulcrum discoideum e fibris radicalibus 
coalescentibus formatum, substrato affixae, frondibus ramosis, externe e 
cellulis parenchymatibus, interne e filis inter stratum currentibus, 
compositis ; sporae in sporangiis clavatis inclusae, inter paranemata 
* Phycol. Mem. (Murray), i. (1892) pp. 1-9 (3 pis.). 
