76 THE AUSTRALIAN NATURALIST. 
There are male and female conceptacles, each on different plants 
(dioecious). 
The female branch. If a cross section of branch be made 
the following structures can be seen (Plate I. Figs. 1, 2, 3, 4) 
(a), the sterile hairs or paraphyses consisting of hair-like multi- 
cellular bodies, either simple or slightly branched. (b) oogonia 
or egg holders, rounded bodies fixed to the wall of the con- 
ceptacle by a single cell. The wall of the oogonium consists of 
two distinct walls, the mucilaginous outer one swelling and still 
enclosing the inner wall. The ovum or egg e¢ell of granular pig- 
mented protoplasm is large and elliptical. I found no trace of 
permanent division of this protoplasmic mass. In one case the 
egg cell had become nearly completely divided into 2 lobes by 
pressure, and when the latter was removed the granular proto- 
plasm flowed from one to the other lobe and resumed the 
rounded elliptical form. 
THe Mate Concepracur. (Plate I. Fig. 3, 4, 5.) 
The male conceptacles were slighter, narrower and smaller 
than the female, but in a general way similar. However, the 
paraphyses (Piate I. Fig. 2.) ~were very numerously branched, 
with swollen segments, and on some of the branches were the 
elongate elliptical antheridia (Plate I. Fig. 2). In most con- 
ceptacles they were shed, and formed a dense mass in the centre 
of the conceptacle. These would be expelled through the 
ostiole, and on reaching the sea water would burst and set free 
numerous minute antherozoids or fertilising cells, one of which 
would unite with the oosphere or egg cell, and by subsequent cell 
division and fusion of cells a new Phyllospora plant would be 
built up. 
DESCRIPTION OF PLATES. 
Plate I. 
Phyllospora comosa. (Male). 
Fig. 1. a. Holdfast. b. Main Trunk. e¢ Float. d. Branch. 
e. Male “fruiting leaves.” 
Fig. 2. Microscopic view of one of the paraphyses. a. An- 
theridium. b. Compound paraphysis. 
Fig. 3. Conceptacle (seen with lens). a. Ostiole. 
Fig. 4. Male “leaf.” a. Conceptacles. 
Fig. 5. Longitudinal section of a conceptacle. a. Cortex. b. 
Medulla. ce. Ostiole. d. Antheridia clustered in centre. 
