Fresh-water Algae from Burma, including a few from Bengal and Madras

Abstract

THE material was collected in certain districts of Burma, and a few species in the Burdwan district of Bengal and Vizagapatam district of Madras by Mr. I. H. Burkill, and was forwarded for determination by Lieut.-Col. Prain, at that time director of the Botanical Survey of India. The work is almost entirely systematic, as would be expected in dealing with material from districts where the algal flora was previously almost unknown, and has added very materially to our knowledge of the distribution of fresh-water algæ in the Indian region. Two new genera are described—Euastridium, a large and handsome Desmid possessing peculiar morphological features, and Burkillia, belonging to fhe Protococcaceæ, occurring as free-floating colonies furnished with stout horns. Among the many new species described, Mougeotia producta is of special importance because of the presence of aplanospores in no way different from those which are found in the genus Gonatonema. In the last-named genus aplanospores only are formed, whereas in Mougeotia, aplanospores and spores, as a result of conjugation, are both present, hence it may be necessary to place Gonatonema merely as a section of the genus Mougeotia, in which spores resulting from conjugation have ceased to exist. Urococcus tropicus is remarkable in being green, whereas the cells of other species of the genus usually contain an abundance of a red-brown pigment.