The Fertilization of Batrachospermum \ 
BY 
BRADLEY MOORE DAVIS. 
With Plates VI and VII. 
D URING the course of his studies at Harvard University, 
the writer had the opportunity of examining some 
very excellent material of what appeared to be a winter-form 
of Batrachospermum moniliforme, Roth. As the conditions 
were particularly favourable in this plant for the study of the 
nuclei in the procarps and antherozoids before and after 
fertilization, the writer began a series of observations upon the 
subject. The results were so surprising that he supplemented 
this study with the examination of two other species of the 
same genus, B. coerulescens , Sirdt. and B. Boryanum , Sirdt. 
Certain peculiar positions of the nuclei in the cells of the 
procarps and antherozoids at the time of fertilization and after 
the development of the cystocarp, led the author to think at 
one time that perhaps the cystocarp developed apogamously. 
These puzzling conditions were supplemented by the fact that 
in a certain proportion of the preparations, cystocarps, in 
various stages of development, were found which bore tricho- 
gynes lacking the usual accompanying fused antherozoid. In 
many cases it was not easy to believe that the antherozoid 
1 Contribution from the Cryptogamic Laboratory of Harvard University, No. 31, 
prepared under the direction of Dr. W. G. Farlow. 
[Annals of Botany, Vol. X. No. XXXVII. March, 1896.] 
E 
