Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 2.djvu/296

282 The movements to which reference is here made belong in most cases to a part rather than to the whole of a plant; in some cases, however, we find the whole organism endowed with spontaneous motion of a very remarkable character. An instance of this occurs in the case of the regular undulating motion, exceedingly similar to that of some of the lower animals, characteristic of a class of Algæ hence called Oscillatoriæ. The mode of reproduction of the Algæ, the lowest class of the vegetable kingdom, to which the sea-weeds and the fresh-water confervæ belong, is often obscure, and in some cases different distinct processes exist in the same species. In certain fresh-water Algæ, reproduction takes place by the formation of "Zoospores" (Fig. 1), which are the results of the separation and isolation of the protoplasmic contents of certain special cells. According to the observations of M. Thuret, who has paid great attention to this subject, these zoospores, which are of extreme minuteness, are ovoid in form, and are furnished, either over their whole circumference or toward one extremity, with very fine cilia, varying from two to a large number. As soon as these minute bodies free themselves from the cell in which they are enclosed, the cilia begin to vibrate with great rapidity, the vibration being accompanied by a movement of rotation of the bodies themselves on their axis, occasioned apparently by rapid and spontaneous contractions; the result being a quick motion of the body through the water—undistinguishable, in fact, from that of some of the lower forms of



animal life—continuing for a period varying from half an hour to several hours, at the expiration of which they settle down, reassume the characters of ordinary vegetable cells, lose their cilia, and give rise, by cell-division, to new individuals resembling the parent-plant. Those zoospores which are furnished with cilia at one extremity only, direct that extremity, which is destitute of chlorophyll or green coloring-matter, toward the light. Closely resembling these zoospores are the "spermatozoa" of the higher orders of cryptogamic plants, ferns, equisetums, and mosses. These bodies (Fig. 2) are produced in the antheridia or male organs, again by a modification of the protoplasmic cell-contents; they are filiform bodies of various forms, mostly presenting one or more spiral curves, and furnished with vibratile cilia. When released from the parent-cells, they move about with great