PRINGSHEIM’s JAKRBUCIIER. 
517 
new plant, whether such new plant is produced by a germinating 
spore, or from a cell of an existing plant. The proembryos of Mosses 
have been admirably described and figured in Schimper’s work, 
“ Becherches sur les Mousses,” published in 1848, and some obser¬ 
vations upon those of Liverworts are to be found in Bischoff’s 
Handbuch der botanischen Terminologie, in the Botanische Zeitung 
for 1853, p. 113, and in the same journal for 1858, Supp. p. 45. No 
organs of this nature have hitherto been known to exist in the 
Charge, which have been supposed to occupy a sort of isolated position, 
which has been thus described by Bischoff, who says, “ It is clear 
“ that in the Charge the germ-plant is developed immediately from 
“ the spore, without a trace of a primitive germ-organ as is the case 
“ with the other cryptogams of the higher orders, and thus the 
“ position of these plants on the dividing line of the two principal 
“ divisions of the vegetable kingdom is established.” 
We will now proceed to give a concise summary of Dr. Pringsheim’s 
observations, which embody the interesting discovery that the Charge 
do not occupy the exceptional position assigned to them by Bischoff, 
but produce proembryos like the Mosses and Liverworts. 
The germination of the spores of Charge was first observed by 
Vaucher in 1821, and afterwards noticed independently by Kaulfuss. 
Bischoff was the first who distinctly maintained (in the passage 
quoted above) that in Chara the germ-plant arises directly from the 
spore without any preceding germ-organ, and that Chara therefore 
differed from the other higher cryptogams. This Dr. Pringsheim 
maintains is an erroneous view, for he says that in Chara also a pro¬ 
embryo is first formed, from which the new plant is produced by a 
process of gemmation. 
The observations leading to this conclusion were made principally 
upon Chara fragihs. In young plants of this species, growing under 
ordinary circumstances, there is normally only one lateral shoot in 
the axil of the oldest leaf, which shoot differs in no respect from the 
mother-shoot. But in older plants, especially if they have lived 
through the winter, shoots are formed not only in the axil of the 
oldest leaf, but also in the axils, and at the base, of the younger leaves 
of the same whorl. These latter shoots are more or less abnormal, 
and of two kinds : they are called by Dr. Pringsheim respectively 
“ barefooted shoots ” (nacktfiissige Zweige), and “ proembryonal 
shoots” (Zweigvorkeime). The abnormalities of the former are—a 
want of bark* (occurring usually only in the lowest joint) ;—often an 
entire suppression of nodes in the leaves, especially of the first whorl; 
—occasionally a variableness in the size and number of the internodes 
of the individual leaves of the first whorl. Great variations, however, 
exist in the features of the barefooted shoots, and several special 
instances are mentioned. It is not necessary to notice them here, 
^ We have net space to go into the mode of formation of the cortical layer in 
Chaue ; it is formed by strings of cells ascending and descending from the nodes 
and covering the axis. 
