178 
Notes . 
Lemaneaceae 1 , and the Batrachospermeae 2 . He finds that, in the 
Lemaneaceae, the carpospore gives rise to a creeping filamentous or 
flattened body which produces neither sexual nor asexual reproductive 
organs, but gives rise to erect lateral branches which eventually be- 
come independent and constitute sexual plants (oophytes). This case 
is comparable with that of the Characeae. In Batrachospermum , the 
carpospore likewise gives rise to a filamentous body, the Chantransia- 
form, from which the sexual Batrachospermum-plant eventually springs 
as a lateral branch. This case, again, is so far comparable with that of 
the Characeae. But there is this peculiarity, that the Chantransia- 
form of Batrachospermum produces spores. This would seem 
to confirm my view concerning the nature of the pro-embryo of 
the Characeae, but, as a matter of fact, it does not. These 
Chantransia-spores are of the nature of gonidia ; that is, they simply 
reproduce and multiply the Chantransia-form ; they do not give rise 
to Batrachospermum-plants. Hence, they do not prove that the 
Chantransia-form is the sporophyte in the life-history of Batracho - 
spermum ; nor does their presence absolutely disprove that the 
Chantransia-form is the sporophyte, though it renders it improbable. 
The Chantransia-form is probably analogous to the protonema of 
Mosses ; it is the pro-embryo of the oophyte, just as the protonema is 
the pro-embryo of the oophyte, though the one is developed from a 
sexually-produced, the other from an asexually-produced, spore. If 
this be so, then the analogy holds good also in the case of the 
Lemaneaceae and of the Characeae. The development of the pro- 
embryo in these plants is then indicative, not of an alternation 
of generations, but simply of indirect or heteroblastic development, 
S. H. VINES, Cambridge. 
METHOD FOR PRESERVING THE COLOURS OF 
FLOWERS IN DRIED SPECIMENS.— The preservation of the 
colour in dried flowers, leaves, and stems is a matter which has interest 
for a considerable section of the public, and as a method, not generally 
known in Britain, by which this is secured has been practised in 
Berlin with great success for several years, I propose to give a descrip- 
tion of it. It is described by Mr. Hennings in the Abhandlungen des 
botanischen Vereins des Provinz Brandenburg, Bd. xvii (1885). 
1 Ann. d. sci. nat. ser. 5, Tom. xvi. 
2 Les Batrachospermes, 1884. 
