333 
Nemalion multifidum , Ag. 
the pyrenoid itself, I would consider that they bear no relation to starch 
grains. It appears from these tests that reserve food is not stored in the 
chromatophore, but is diffused through the cytoplasm of the cell. 
This wine-red or violet-coloured reserve food material is the substance 
that has been termed ‘Floridean starch’. Bruns (1894), Kolkvitz (1899), 
Biitschli (1903), and others have studied its presence in the red algae, and 
it appears to be an intermediate product between the starches found in most 
higher plants and the simpler di- and mqno-saccharides. Biitschli describes 
it as intermediate between amyloerythrin and amyloporphyrin, giving 
violets, purples, reds, and red-browns with various reagents. He describes 
the colour obtained with iodine as wine-red to red-violet and with chloral 
hydrate-iodine as between violet and livid. In Nemalion , therefore, as in 
many other Florideae, we have as the main product of photosynthesis, not 
the complex starches of the higher plants, but a simpler starch, more soluble 
and giving different colour reactions with the various reagents. In view of 
the fact, therefore, that in Nemalion the reserve food substance is not built 
up into grains but is diffused throughout the cell, and that this substance is 
of a lower order than ordinary starch, we may conclude that, although the 
pyrenoid takes no morphological part in metabolism, as do pyrenoids in 
other groups, this fact does not disprove its metabolic function, and that it is 
actively concerned with the elaboration of Floridean starch. 
Spermatogenesis. 
• 
The account which Wolfe has given of the development of the anther- 
idial branch is in all points correct and needs not to be repeated. The 
cells are very small, averaging 3*5 /ot in diameter, and have well-marked 
chromatophores, with a distinct darkly-staining central region at a stage 
corresponding to Fig. 8, f. The nucleus divides in the manner typical for 
all vegetative cells. The spindle is exceedingly small (Fig. 16), and usually 
each pole shows quite distinctly a minute black body at its tip. These 
figures are very plentiful, but are too small, 1-4 x 3- 1 /x, to be favourable for 
a chromosome count. 
Antheridia are budded off laterally from the cells of the antheridial 
branches. This process is accompanied by chromatophore as well as 
nuclear division (Figs. 16, 17), so that the young antheridium possesses 
a chromatophore, as described by Wolfe. Kylin (1916^) did not observe 
the presence of a chromatophore, although admitting the possibility of such 
being present. After the antheridium is cut off, the chromatophore, which 
is of the most rudimentary nature, disappears from view. Whether it is 
still present and hid by the dense cytoplasm of the cell or whether it 
actually loses its identity could not be determined. 
The process which Wolfe described as taking place during the matura- 
tion of the antheridium, by which the chromatophore is broken up and the 
B b 2 
