Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany / For High Schools and Elementary College Courses

by Douglas Houghton Campbell

The methods of reproduction may be best illustrated by a specific example, and preferably one of the simpler ones, as these are most readily studied microscopically.

The form here illustrated (Callithamnion) grows attached to wharves, etc., below low-water mark, and is extremely delicate, collapsing completely when removed from the water. The color is a bright rosy red, and with its graceful form and extreme delicacy it makes one of the most beautiful of the group.

If alcoholic material is used, it may be mounted for examination either in water or very dilute glycerine.

The plant is composed of much-branched, slender filaments, closely resembling Cladophora in structure, but with smaller cells ([Fig. 29], B). The non-sexual reproduction is by means of special spores, which from being formed in groups of four, are known as tetraspores. In the species under consideration the mother cell of the tetraspores arises as a small bud near the upper end of one of the ordinary cells ([Fig. 29], C i). This bud rapidly increases in size, assuming an oval form, and becoming cut off from the cell of the stem ([Fig. 29], C ii). The contents now divide into four equal parts, arranged like the quadrants of a sphere. When ripe, the wall of the mother cell gives way, and the four spores escape into the water and give rise to new plants. These spores, it will be noticed, differ in one important particular from corresponding spores in most algæ, in being unprovided with cilia, and incapable of spontaneous movement.

Occasionally in the same plant that bears tetraspores, but more commonly in special ones, there are produced the sexual organs, and subsequently the sporocarps, or fruits, developed from them. The plants that bear them are usually stouter that the non-sexual ones, and the masses of ripe carpospores are large enough to be readily seen with the naked eye.

If a plant bearing ripe spores is selected, the young stages of the female organ (procarp) may generally be found by examining the younger parts of the plant. The procarp arises from a single cell of the filament. This cell undergoes division by a series of longitudinal walls into a central cell and about four peripheral ones ([Fig. 29], D i). One of the latter divides next into an upper and a lower cell, the former growing out into a long, colorless appendage known as a trichogyne ([Fig. 29], D, tr.).

The antheridia ([Fig. 29], E) are hemispherical masses of closely set colorless cells, each of which develops a single spermatozoid which, like the tetraspores, is destitute of cilia, and is dependent upon the movement of the water to convey it to the neighborhood of the procarp. Occasionally one of these spermatozoids may be found attached to the trichogyne, and in this way fertilization is effected. Curiously enough, neither the cell which is immediately fertilized, nor the one beneath it, undergo any further change; but two of the other peripheral cells on opposite sides of the filament grow rapidly and develop into large, irregular masses of spores ([Fig. 29], D III, IV).

While the plant here described may be taken as a type of the group, it must be borne in mind that many of them differ widely, not only in the structure of the plant body, but in the complexity of the sexual organs and spores as well. The tetraspores are often imbedded in the tissues of the plant, or may be in special receptacles, nor are they always arranged in the same way as here described, and the same is true of the carpospores. These latter are in some of the higher forms, e.g. Polysiphonia ([Fig. 29], F), contained in urn-shaped receptacles, or they may be buried within the tissues of the plant.

Fig. 30.—Marine red seaweeds. A, Dasya. B, Rhodymenia (with smaller algæ attached). C, Grinnellia. D, Delesseria. A, B, natural size; the others reduced one-half.

The fresh-water forms are not common, but may occasionally be met with in mill streams and other running water, attached to stones and woodwork, but are much inferior in size and beauty to the marine species. The red color is not so pronounced, and they are, as a rule, somewhat dull colored.