FRITSCHIELLA, A NEW TERRESTRIAL MEMBER OF THE CHAETOPHORACEAE

THIS alga was growing more or less gregariously, together with Protosiphon botryoides or Botrydium tuberoswn, on the moist silt of drying rain-water pools at Madras and occurred in a similar situation, together with Botrydium tttberosmn, at Talguppa in the Mysore Province. The alga has been repeatedly observed in Madras in different years, when the pools were drying up after the north-east monsoon. At first sight the alga recalls a dense growth of Siigeoclonium, but careful examination shows that it possesses a complicated structure which is much more specialised than that of the latter genus. The mature plant consists of (i) a rhizoidal system, penetrating the substratum and comprising one or more downwardly directed rhizoidlike filaments made up of much elongated eolourless cells with very scanty contents and sometimes with a few branches (Text-fig. 2, A, Text-fig. I, F); (2) a prostrate system composed of a number of rounded or irregular swollen clusters of cells with dense contents and thin walls, the whole forming an irregular system with short congested branches (Text-fig. 2, A, C, H, cl); (3) a primary projecting system, arising from the prostrate system and consisting of a number of upright short-celled branched threads (Text-fig. 2, A, H, pr); and (4) a secondary projecting system composed of somewhat elongate branches having longer cells with bright green contents (Text-fig. 2, A, H, sec). In the natural habitat only the secondary projecting system arises as a tuft above the surface of the substratum, the remaining portions of the alga being situated on a level with or slightly beneath the surface of the soil.