the Cystocarp in Rhodomelaceae . 291 
by Chondria tenuissima , A g., in the process of the maturation 
of the cystocarp. This plant differed in some important 
details from the other members of the family which he had 
examined, and Schmitz entertained a belief that similar 
departures would be found elsewhere. I therefore examined 
such suitable material as I could collect, and have now in- 
vestigated the earlier stages of the cystocarp in several species 
of the genera Rhodomela and Polysiphonia , four of them with 
some detail. As might have been expected perhaps from 
the narrow limits covered by the species, no considerable 
variation of structure has been observed ; it is rather the 
uniformity which is the more remarkable. Some of the 
results which have been obtained, it may, however, be of 
interest to publish, more especially as the monograph on the 
Florideae upon which Schmitz, in collaboration with Fal- 
kenberg for the Rhodomelaceae, has long been engaged, is 
not likely to appear for some time yet. 
The account of the formation of the cystocarp in Rhodo- 
melaceae in the paper already referred to, is necessarily 
somewhat meagre, as the communication was avowedly of 
a preliminary nature, and covered the whole of the Florideae. 
A supplementary description (7) has since appeared, adding 
the result of later investigation. The earlier account is 
accompanied by only one figure illustrating the group under 
consideration. Excellent figures of Chondria tenuissima have 
been given by Janczewski (8) and again by Bornet and Thuret 
in the Etudes phycologiques (9) ; but in both works the 
description fails at the point which Schmitz has since made 
so interesting. The figures of Polysiphonia variegata, Zanard., 
in Schenck’s Handbuch (10) would now have to be revised 
by Falkenberg in the light of the researches of his colleague. 
The description given by Van Tieghem in the latest edition 
of the Traite de Botanique (11) of the structure of the cysto- 
carp in Polysiphonia errs in the same particulars as do 
Falkenberg’s description and figures, which is the more 
remarkable as this author has embodied in the same work 
the classification which Schmitz founds upon his researches. 
