Mr. Correa de Serra on the 
498 
his opinion. A membranaceous loculament, containing the 
pollen, is the only necessary part of the male apparatus in 
plants ; the filaments and the fibrous texture are only the 
pedicles of it, and very far from being necessary, as the sessile 
anthene of numberless fructifications clearly prove. If a fibrous 
concealed structure could be esteemed of any use, it was already 
found by Gmelin, in the seed-vessels of the true fuci,* and ele- 
gantly described by Major Velley, in the Fucus Vesiculosus , 
and by Mr. Stackhouse himself, in the Fucus Siliquosus ; but, 
even when magnified, it offers nothing more than simple tu- 
bular vessels, with frequent anastomoses, very remote indeed 
from the nature of a male apparatus. 
Having stated the leading systems on the fructification of 
submersed algae, I will next submit to this Society such opi- 
nions as the phenomena I have observed induce me to have 
about it. 
All these plants are furnished with grains, which are a tem- 
porary production, and, by their falling, give rise to new indi- 
viduals of the same species. In the true fuci, they are con- 
tained in an uterus, which has a temporary existence, and 
for their sake only, where they have a placentation, and are 
covered by a testa, or coat of their own. Nobody doubts that 
they are true seeds. The Ceramiums and Ulvae have the same 
grains, as means of reproduction ; and the confervae also have 
them, though of a different shape. What then can be the 
reasons why these last are to be considered as gongyli and 
gemmce carpomorphce f 
The only arguments adduced to deprive them of the nature 
of seeds are the three following. 
1st. The grains of the Ulvae and Ceramiums are solitary, not 
* Hist. Fucorum, pag. 25, et seq. 
