Otto Frederick Mueller, in 1786, published at Copenhagen a work on "Infusorial Animalcules," including a description of a Vibrio which he named paxillifer, obviously alluding to the partially-extended frustules bearing at the end a tablet-like bundle. Two years later, Gmelin described the same form as Bacillaria paradoxa, a name still used. Heiberg, however, in 1863, placed the form under Nitzschia where it properly belongs and called it Nitzschia paxillifer (O. F. Mueller). I have adopted Heiberg's name.
Perhaps the most remarkable of all diatoms. Many species possess the power of motion, which, however, is evident only in the free frustule. In N. paxillifer, the movement of the frustules occurs without the loss of continuity or adherence to each other, so that, while at one time the adnate frustules form a narrow filament, like that of Fragilaria, at another time they move laterally to their extreme length and form a thread of frustules adherent at their ends, later resuming their original position. The motion is repeated at intervals of from five to ten seconds. No satisfactory explanation of the movement has ever been made. In the filamentous form the frustules adhere to water-plants.
Vivaces
NITZSCHIA FLUMINENSIS GRUN.
Valve lanceolate, apices produced; keel puncta, 4-6 in 10 µ, partly extended in short costæ; striæ transverse, 14-15 in 10 µ, punctate; keel without a pseudo-nodule. L. 73 µ.
Common at Greenwich Point, Philadelphia.
Pl. [32], Fig. 16.
The form here figured is smaller than the type, which is from 130-160 µ in length.
Spathulatæ
NITZSCHIA SPATHULATA BRÉB.