Abstract
OOSPORES OF “VoLVOX MINOR.”—Dr. Kirchner, in the recent part of Cohn's “Beiträge zur Biologic der Pflanzen,” describes the germination of the oospores, and in this supplements the important contribution made by Cohn himself to our knowledge of this interesting plant in the first volume of the same work. The first appearance of germination was in February. The contents of the oospores during a rapid swelling out of the endospore, made their appearance through the ruptured exospore, and soon presented a sphere-shaped body, which then divided into two portions, these being perpendicular to one another. The newly-formed cells so separate from one another that they hang together by their ends. These ends form the one pole of the later-to-be-developed ball-like colony; the other pole is afterwards closed in, when the maximum of the cells is attained. Each oospore thus gives rise through cell division, followed by the characteristic cell displacement, to a new volvox colony. The fact of V. minor being diœcious was given as a character to distinguish it from V. globator, but this, according to the author, does not hold true; both colonies seem to pass through a purely female stage and afterwards through a male stage, each colony being bi-sexual.
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Biological Notes . Nature 21, 93–94 (1879). https://doi.org/10.1038/021093a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/021093a0