Note 6 — EMBRYOLOGY.

In the vegetable kingdom there are numerous types of Thallophytes, which throw a considerable amount of light on the relation between sexual reproduction and conjugation. Subjoined are a few of the more striking cases. In Pandorina at the time of sexual reproduction the cells which constitute a colony divide each into sixteen, and the products of their division are set free. Pairs of them then conjugate and permanently fuse. After a resting stage the protoplasm is set free from its envelope after division into two or four parts. Each of these then divides into sixteen coherent cells and constitutes a new Pandorina colony. In Œdogonium the fertilization is effected by a spermatozoon fusing with an oosphere (ovum). The fertilized oosphere (oospore) then undergoes segmentation like the ovum of an animal; but the segments, instead of uniting to form a single organism, separate from each other, and each of them gives rise to a fresh individual (swarm-spore) which grows into a perfect Œdogonium. In Coleochæte the impregnation and segmentation take place nearly as in Œdogonium, but the segments remain united together, acquire definite cell walls, and form a single embryo. There is in fact in Coleochæte a true sexual reproduction of the ordinary type. (Vide S. H. Vines “On alternation of generation in the Thallophytes.” Journal of Botany, Nov., 1879.)