79 
Cutleria multifida ( Grev .). 
by the temperature of the northern summer, and in the 
English Channel we are already beyond the natural home 
of the Cutleria family. 
Parthenogenesis of Cutleria. 
The first recorded specimen of C. multifida was picked 
up after a storm on Yarmouth beach by Dawson Turner on 
August 3r, 1804 1 . It was a female plant, covered with 
oogonia as the date would suggest, and was described in 
Smith and Sowerby’s English Botany in 1805, under- the 
name of Ulva multifida (No. 1913)- It appears as Zonaria 
multifida in Agardh’s Sp. Alg. 1824, an d as Sporochnus 
multifidus in Sprengel’s Systema Vegetabilium of Linnaeus, 
in 1825 ; it received its modern title in 1830, from Greville 2 , 
who formed for it a new genus, named in honour of Miss 
Cutler of Sidmouth. Greville, also, knew only the female, 
or as it was considered, the sporangiate plant. Antheridial 
plants were described later by Dickie, but these were very 
rare, and Harvey in his Phycologia Britannica (1846) mentions 
that he had never seen more than one such plant, which had 
been sent him from Sidmouth. 
At this time no sexual significance had been attributed 
to the reproductive cells of Algae, or these antheridia might 
have been a source of difficulty ; but they were commonly 
regarded as imperfectly formed swarming cells which were 
consequently destined to remain sterile 3 . The first definite 
statements with regard to the emission and germination 
of the spores were made by Thuret 4 in 1850. He observed 
the discharge of the oospheres in the early hours of the 
morning, as also their active movement and strong positive 
heliotropism by means of which they rose to the surface 
of the water. In all cases germination was direct ; the 
1 Harvey, Phycologia Britannica, i. 33. 
2 Algae Britannicae, p. 60. 
3 Cp. Nageli, Bot. Zeit. 1849, p. 569. * Ann. Sci. Nat. iii. 14, p. 32. 
