M
G- I
Dr H o o k e r immediately ascertained the presence of a gelatinous
substratum, and remarked in a letter to me, that the plant
differed from Palmella, only in having the globules sessile upon
the gelatine, instead of being immersed in its substance.
My friend’s observations rvill, I believe, he given at length in
the Appendix to Captain P a r r y ’s Second Voyage, at present
unpublished.
That the plant is an Alga, has been also confirmed hy Professor
D e C a n d o l l e , who expresses his opinion, in a letter
to the Royal Academy of Paris *, that it is nearly allied to the
genera Ulva and JVostoc. He not only disbelieves in its being
a Uredo, hut denies the existence of a pedicel, and supposes
that the appearance of one has been produced by smaller
globules attached to the larger ones. He denies the globules
a granulous interior, and says he obtained by pressure only an
oily substance. Professor D e C a n d o l l e also maintains, that
the spherical form, and long duration of the globules, are strong
arguments against their being Infusory animalculce. This opinion,
N e e s ah E s e n b e c k observes, is strictly correct, as applied
to Infusoria in general, hut not so in those instances
where death in the animal is merely a transition to vegetable
existence, under the form of an Alga. Here globules are not
uncommon. We have always remarked, that the Infusory animalcule
of the Vaucheria hursata, swam ahout in an elliptical
shape during its animal life, and, in its subsequent change to
vegetation, acquired a green colour, and spherical form f.
It must not he omitted, that my friend Mr P u r t o n , in
the 3d volume of his “ Midland Flora,” p. 513. states, that he
has been informed, on good authority, that the colour of the
snow is derived from “ Tremella cruenta, and not, as was supposed,
from Uredo nivalis.” He himself is of opinion that the
plant has a greater affinity to Tremella than Uredo, since it is
produced on the ground. But he thinks that it may he a
Uredo, from the pedicels described by Mr B a u e r , and from
the granulated glutinous substance which issued from the ripe
• Ann. de Chimie, xii. p. 77-
t B r o w n ’s Bot. Schrift. v. i. p. 577-
fungi, an appearance which Mr P u r t o n has observed in the
true Uredines and Puccinice.
Having now related the principal facts and opinions known
and advanced respecting this curious subject, I shall proceed to
state the result of my own investigations ; and it is necessary
to premise, that I had made my drawing and dissections before
consulting what other writers had done, with the single exception
of Mr B a u e r .
The specimens I examined were produced on stone, decayed
mosses, and on dead leaves; some brought from the arctic
regions, others from the Island of Lismore, on the coast of
Scotland. I had them immersed in water for a period of three
weeks, but did not succeed in tracing any appearance that was
not developed equally well in the course of a few hours. In
every instance, I found no difficulty in detecting a gelatinous
substratum, various in thickness (sometimes exceeding the diameter
of the globules), colourless, diffuse, without any defined border.
Upon this gelatine rests a vast number of minute globules,
the colour of fine garnets, exactly spherical, nearly opake, yet
very brilliant, for the most part nearly equal in size: the smaller
ones are generally surrounded with a white pellucid limb, like
the capsules of Ceramium roseum; and this limb gradually
becoming less as the globules enlarge, at last entirely disappears.
In the full-sized globules, a favourable light shows the
existence of internal granules, which make the surface to appear
reticulated. When mature, they burst, and the internal
granules escape, to the number of 6—8 or more, and the membrane
only of the globule is left behind, buoyant and colourless.
The granules are globose, and escape from the globules
one by one, or by several at once, adhering together. Though
I never could observe the least voluntary motion among any of
these bodies, it is evident my observations very nearly coincide
with those of Earon W r a n g e l , who even beheld the bursting
of the globules, and discharge of the granules. I t also appears
tolerably certain, that the floating colourless globules of
B a u e r and A g a r d h were the empty cases that had parted
with their contents. And it seems very probable that the following
passage from B a u e r ’s account, must he explained on