192 
Notes . 
The carpels are represented in their average proportion to .each 
other, and their average position with regard to the sepals in Diagram IV. 
In this figure carpel I will be seen turned towards the direction of the 
spiral as in Diagram III, though not so markedly. 
These observations may prove suggestive. I do not at present 
propose to make any deductions from them. 
I. HENRY BURKILL. 
THE PRIMITIVE ALGAE AND THE FLAGELLATA.— 
Since the appearance of my article in the last number of the Annals, 
I have learned that the theory of the parallel evolution of the brown 
and green Algae, to the exposition of which a section of my article 
was devoted, was first suggested by Professor Wille so long ago as 
1891. The hypothesis, and at that time it could be no more, was 
briefly brought forward in the chapters on Algae which Wille con- 
tributed to Warming’s Systematic Botany (3rd Danish Edition, section 
Syngeneticae). 
In the English translation of this work the editor has unfortunately 
omitted just the two sentences which contain this view, so that I was 
quite unaware that Wille had been the first to suggest it or I would 
gladly have associated with the theory the name of one to whom 
algology owes so much. 
Further, I should like to add that on looking through the section 
on the phylogeny of the Chlorophyceae, it occurs to me that I might 
have dealt more directly with the views brought forward by Chodat 
at the British Association in 1896 (see Annals of Botany, vol. xi). 
These views have, however, their origin in conceptions of the poly- 
morphism of the green Algae which cannot be said to be generally 
accepted, so that it would have been difficult to have considered 
them without introducing controversial details, but the spirit of the 
phylogenetic treatment is eminently scientific, and I am at one with 
the author in thinking that the broad lines of affinity are remarkably 
clear in this group. 
Finally, I regret that the following reference to a paper which is 
mentioned in the text has been omitted from the bibliography : — 
West, G. S. ’98, Alga-Flora of Cambridgeshire, Journal of Botany, 
vol. xxxvii. 
F. F. BLACKMAN. 
Cambridge. 
