Fig. 19.—The egg of the common bladder-wrack (Fucus vesiculosus), a simple naked cell, much enlarged. In the centre of the naked globule of protoplasm the bright kernel is visible.
It was probably the Fucoideæ, or Brown Algæ, which during the primordial period, to a great extent constituted the characteristic alga-forests of that immense space of time. Their petrified remains, especially those of the Silurian period, which have been preserved, can, it is true, give us but a faint idea of them, because the material of these Algæ, like that of most others, is ill-suited for preservation in a fossil state. As has already been remarked, a large portion of coal is perhaps composed of them.
Less important is the fourth class of Algæ, that of the Rose-coloured Algæ (Rhodophyceæ), or Red Sea-weeds (Florideæ). This class, it is true, presents a great number of different forms; but most of them are of much smaller size than the Brown Algæ. Although they are inferior to the latter in perfection and differentiation, they far surpass them in some other respects. To them belong the most beautiful and elegant of all Algæ, which on account of the fine plumose division of their leaf-like bodies, and also on account of their pure and delicate red colour, are among the most charming of plants. The characteristic red colour sometimes appears as a deep purple, sometimes as a glowing scarlet, sometimes as a delicate rose tint, and may verge into violet and bluish purple, or on the other hand into brown and green tints of marvellous splendour. Whoever has visited one of our sea-coast watering places, must have admired the lovely forms of the Florideæ, which are frequently dried on white paper and offered for sale.
Most of the Red Algæ are so delicate, that they are quite incapable of being petrified; this is the case with the splendid Ptilotes, Plocamia, Delesseria, etc. However, there are individual forms, like the Chondria and Sphærococca, which possess a harder thallus, often almost as hard as cartilage, and of these fossil remains have been preserved—principally in the Silurian, Devonian, and Carboniferous strata, and later in the oolites. It is probable that this class also had an important share in the composition of the archilithic Algæ flora.
If we now again take into consideration the flora of the primordial period, which was exclusively formed by the group of Algæ, we can see that it is not improbable that its four subordinate classes had a share in the composition of those submarine forests of the primæval oceans, similar to that which the four types of vegetation—trees with trunks, flowering shrubs, grass, and tender leaf-ferns and mosses—at present take in the composition of our recent land forests.
We may suppose that the submarine tree forests of the primordial period were formed by the huge Brown Algæ, or Fucoideæ. The many-coloured flowers at the foot of these gigantic trees were represented by the gay Red Algæ, or Florideæ. The green grass between was formed by the hair-like bunches of Green Algæ, or Chloroalgæ. Finally, the tender foliage of ferns and mosses, which at present cover the ground of our forests, fill the crevices left by other plants, and even settle on the trunks of the trees, at that time probably had representatives in the moss and fern-like Siphoneæ, in the Caulerpa and Bryopsis, from among the class of the primary Algæ, Protophyta, or Archephyceæ.
With regard to the relationships of the different classes of Algæ to one another and to other plants, it is exceedingly probable that the Primary Algæ, or Archephyceæ, as already remarked, form the common root of the pedigree, not merely for the different classes of Algæ, but for the whole vegetable kingdom. On this account they may with justice be designated as primæval plants, or Protophyta.
Out of the naked vegetable Monera, in the beginning of the Laurentian period, enclosed cytods were probably the first to arise (vol. i. p. [345]), by the naked, structureless, albuminous substance of the Monera becoming condensed in the form of a pellicle on the surface, or by secreting a membrane. At a later period, out of these enclosed cytods genuine vegetable cells probably arose, as a kernel or nucleus separated itself in the interior from the surrounding cell-substance or plasma.
The three classes of Green Algæ, Brown Algæ, and Red Algæ, are perhaps three distinct classes, which have arisen independently of one another out of the common radical group of Primæval Algæ, and then developed themselves further (each according to its kind), and have variously branched off into orders and families. The Brown and Red Algæ possess no close blood relationship to the other classes of the vegetable kingdom. These latter have most probably arisen out of the Primæval Algæ, either directly or by the intermediate step of the Green Algæ.
It is probable that Mosses (out of which, at a later time, Ferns developed) proceeded from a group of Green Algæ, and that Fungi and Lichens proceeded from a group of Primæval Algæ. The Phanerogamia developed at a much later period out of Ferns.