The act of conjugation by which spores are formed, usually takes place between the cells of two distinct parallel filaments which happen to be adjacent to each other, and all the cells of the two filaments generally take part in it at once. The cells that are opposite to one another put out little protuberances, which come into contact with each other; the intervening partitions disappear, so that a tube is formed which establishes a free communication or passage between the cavities of the conjugating cells. In the genus Mesocarpus and others, the conjugating cells pour their endochromes into a dilatation of the passage that has been established between them, and it is there that the matter mingles to form a spore or embryo cell. But in the Zygnema ([fig. 21]), which is the commonest form of these plants, the endochrome of one cell passes entirely over into the cavity of the other, and within the latter the two endochromes coalesce into a single mass, round which a firm coat is developed, and it becomes a spore. All the cells of one filament are thus left empty, while spores are formed in all the cells of the other.[[38]] Sometimes cells in the same filament conjugate, and occasionally the endochrome in a cell divides into two parts, each of which becomes a spore.
Fig. 21. Conjugation of Zygnema quininum:—A. two filaments in the first stage of conjugation; B, completion of the act of conjugation.
Some of the spores are quiescent, others have cilia and are motile, but both after a time become attached at one end by two or three root-like fibres, and grow into filaments by repeated bisection. According to the observations of M. Itzigsohn, the endochrome in certain filaments of Spirogyra breaks up before conjugation into little spherical aggregations, which are gradually converted into nearly colourless spiral filaments, having an active spontaneous motion, and therefore corresponding precisely to antherozoids. With the exception of South America, the Conjugatæ are widely dispersed in warm and temperate climates.
The genus Vaucheria may be assumed as a type of the Siphoneæ, whose essential character is, that the plant consists of one single tubular cell, however branched and complicated its form may be. The Vaucherias form tufted masses of branching tubes, filled with bright green granular matter, on mud and damp soil; they abound in fresh-water pools, and some grow in the sea. When about to produce fruit, the extremities of some of the tubes swell out in the shape of a club, in which a portion of the green matter collects, takes a darker hue, and is separated from the rest by a transparent space and a new envelope. After various changes, the darker green matter forms itself into a zoospore, which is so active that it breaks open the top of its club-shaped cell, and comes into the water; sometimes several come, one after another. They are egg-shaped, with a colourless beak, and as their whole body is bristled with cilia, they leave a long current in their wake when they swim, which they do with such impetus that they are flattened against any obstacle they meet with, even to the discharge of their green endochrome. They escape from their cell about eight in the morning, move for two hours, then come to rest, and begin to grow into a new plant.
M. Pringsheim discovered another mode of reproduction in the Vaucherias, which are monœcious plants, that is to say, the same plant produces snake-like fertilizing spermatozoids and female germ cells. For example, the Vaucheria sessilis consists of one long branched cell; on the same side of it two swellings appear near to each other, one of which elongates, curls round like a horn, and is soon filled with snake-shaped filaments having long cilia at their thin end, with which they move rapidly both within the horn, and after they come out of it into the water. They are perfectly colourless, and correspond to the pollen of flowering plants. The other protrusion which swells into a globose germ cell, and which corresponds to the pistil of a flower, contains a mass of green endochrome, which, after being fertilized by the snake-like filaments, becomes a primordial cell which has no motion, but after having secreted a strong coating of cellulose, it sinks to the bottom of the water, becomes a winter or resting spore, and lays the foundation for a new generation of plants. The resting spores produce new forms, while the zoospores, like buds, only multiply the type of the individual plant with all its peculiarities.
The marine genus Bryopsis grows in New Zealand, the Falkland Islands, and the seas about Cape Horn. The species are mostly parasites on other Algæ, and produce innumerable zoospores. The genus Codium is found in high latitudes, and appears under four different forms on the British coasts; one of these inhabits turfy banks exposed to the spray of the sea, the others grow in deep water, or on rocks never uncovered but at spring tides. Species of this genus are found as far south as Kerguelen’s Land, and in most of the intervening latitudes. The Caulerpas inhabit the warmer districts in the northern hemisphere, and furnish five species in New Zealand. The numerous species afford almost the whole food of turtles on many coasts, and other genera furnish nutriment to a host of smaller animals.[[39]]
The Achlya prolifera is also a unicellular plant, much smaller than the Vaucheria, but whether an Alga or a Fungus is not very clearly settled. To the naked eye it appears as a cluster of colourless threads on dead flies floating in water, on the gills of fishes, and sometimes on frogs. With a microscope the tufts are seen to consist of tubes extending in all directions, filled with a nearly colourless granular matter, the particles of which are seen to move slowly in streams along the walls of the tubes, the currents sometimes anastomosing with each other. When the plant is about thirty-six hours old, the endochrome begins to accumulate in the dilated ends of the tubes, and is cut off from the remainder by a transverse division, the motion of the particles being still visible in the part cut off. The endochrome breaks up into a number of long masses, each of which acquires a cell wall and two cilia, and begins to move about within the parent cell; when mature they are set free by the rupture in its wall, and germinate, and produce a facsimile of the parent. It appears that, in some species, the transverse dividing film becomes convex as soon as the motile bodies are discharged, a new fertile articulation is formed and new motile spores are set free, and this process is continued till the vital powers of the plant are exhausted. The Achlya has resting spores, which may remain long in the water without change, but if a dead insect be put into it, they fix on it and germinate immediately. It is supposed that these resting spores are fertilized by filamental bodies. The Achlya prolifera goes through all its changes in an hour and a half or two hours. It is found in the thermal springs at Vichy, Nevis, and Vaux, where it contains an alkaline iodide.
The whole of the plants which have been described in the preceding pages belong to the group of green Algæ, although many are inhabitants of fresh water. The structure of the marine Algæ is entirely cellular. Deprived of vascular tubes, they can have no circulation of sap, consequently they derive their nourishment by absorption throughout their whole surface from the medium in which they live, for their root, or rather fulcrum, only serves to fix them to the rocks and stones to prevent them from being buffeted by the waves. Since solar light and heat decrease rapidly with the depth, each family of Algæ has a zone peculiar to itself. The first zone extends from high to low water mark, and is inhabited by plants periodically exposed to the atmosphere, to the direct light and heat of the sun, and occasionally to rain. Some of the Algæ that are long left dry are believed to derive some nourishment from the substances to which they are fixed. The second zone, which extends from low water mark to a depth of fifteen fathoms, is the region of the great marine forests which encircle the globe in both hemispheres. Other two zones follow at greater and greater depths, but all are divided into various minor regions, below the last of which the Algæ decrease as the depth increases, till, as far as we know, vegetation ceases altogether; that depth, however, must be very great, as diatoms are sometimes found, and in great quantities, three hundred fathoms deep.
The marine Confervas, like those growing in fresh water, are slender-jointed filaments formed of one series of cells joined end to end. The cells become more or less flattened on the surface of contact, while the side walls retain their natural curvature, which may be cylindrical or oval. The filament may, therefore, be cylindrical or beaded. The cells are almost always longer than they are broad, and for the most part equal and similar in the same plant, although there are exceptions to uniformity of size. The cells contain a transparent liquid through which minute solid particles of various shades of green are pretty evenly scattered. The conversion of these particles into zoospores has already been described. Since these Algæ have no roots, and the cell wall no opening, each cell of a Conferva elaborates independently the nutriment it absorbs from the water. Some species form a fleecy layer over rocks, and on the bottoms of salt-water pools and estuaries, others extend in bundles in salt-water ditches, and some are found on rocks, between tide marks, rising in long, straight, stiff, and wiry tufts, from three to eight or twelve inches high.