Page:First course in biology (IA firstcourseinbio00bailrich).pdf/214

 CHAPTER XXIV

STUDIES IN CRYPTOGAMS

The pupil who has acquired skill in the use of the compound microscope may desire to make more extended excursions into the cryptogamous orders. The following plants have been chosen as examples in various groups. Ferns are sufficiently discussed in the preceding chapter.

If an infusion of ordinary hay is made in water and allowed to stand, it becomes turbid or cloudy after a few days, and a drop under the microscope will show the presence of minute oblong cells swimming in the water perhaps by means of numerous hair-*like appendages, that project through the cell wall from the protoplasm within. At the surface of the dish containing the infusion the cells are non-motile and are united in long chains. Each of these cells or organisms is a bacterium (plural, bacteria). (Fig. 135.)

Bacteria are very minute organisms,—the smallest known,—consisting either of separate oblong or spherical cells, or of chains, plates, or groups of such cells, depending on the kind. They possess a membrane-like wall which, unlike the cell walls of higher plants, contains nitrogen. The presence of a nucleus has not been definitely demonstrated. Multiplication is by the fission of the vegetative cells; but under certain conditions of drought, cold, or exhaustion of the nutrient medium, the protoplasm of the ordinary cells may become invested with a thick wall, thus forming an endospore which is very resistant to extremes of environment. No sexual reproduction is known.

Bacteria are very widely distributed as parasites and saprophytes in almost all conceivable places. Decay is largely caused by bacteria, accompanied in animal tissue by the liberation of foul-smelling gases. Certain species grow in the reservoirs and pipes of water supplies, rendering the water brackish and often undrinkable. Some kinds of fermentation (the breaking down or decomposing of organic compounds, usually accompanied by the