Nov., 1912.] The Reduction Division in Fuchsia. 7 



Two varieties of the Fuchsia commonly grown in greenhouses 

 were used. Both were varieties of Fuchsia speciosa (Hort.), of 

 rather small size — one variety having red and the other white 

 sepals. The species is coinmonly supposed to be a hybrid. 

 Fuchsia speciosa was obtained from the greenhouse in connection 

 with the Botany building of the Ohio State University at Columbus 

 The buds which showed the reduction stages were quite small, being 

 about 3-5 mm. in length. They were killed in Schaffner's weaker 

 chrom-acetic solution. Material was left in the killing fluid for 

 24 hours and then thoroughly washed and run up to 70 per cent 

 alcohol where it was left for several days. Then 85, 95 and 100 

 per cent alcohols were added in turn and chloroform and from that 

 the buds were slowly taken into pure parafin and imbedded. 

 Sections were 10-15 mic. thick. Delafield's Haemotoxylin was 

 tried with poor success. The best stain was a combination of 

 Safranin and Iron Haemotoxylin. The slides were transferred 

 from 25 per cent alcohol to Safranin and left for four hours. They 

 were then washed off in 25 per cent alcohol and put into water 

 and then transferred to iron alum. Slides were kept in iron alum 

 for four hours and then washed for a while in water, after which 

 which they were left over night in Haeinotoxylin. Next day the 

 slides were bleached in iron alum, and in some cases acid alcohol, 

 and were mounted in balsam. 



The tapetal layer is rather slow in developing but by the 

 time the sporocytes began to be differentiated it can easily be dis- 

 tinguished as a limiting layer of the sporogenous tissue. The 

 sporogenous tissue remains intact during all the early stages of 

 the reduction process and it is only while the chromosomes 

 are being formed that the sporocytes become separated from each 

 other and from the tapetal wall. In cross section the stamens 

 show the usual four microsporangia and each cavity usually 

 contains from five to eight sporocytes. As the stamen grows 

 older the number of sporocytes, that show in cross section de- 

 creases until four is the more usual number. This may be due to 

 the rapid elongation of the anther at the time when the sporo- 

 cytes are separating. 



The nucleus in the early stages is rather small and is made up 

 of a reticulum, containing dark staining masses (Fig. 1). As the 

 nucleus enlarges these lumps become much more prominent and 

 definite and may be regarded as protochromosomes (Figs. 2, 3, 4). 

 In no case was it possible to make a positive count of these masses 

 since some of them had apparently begun to disintegrate while 

 others were just forming. As the lumps disappear the material 

 seems to go toward the formation of small chromatin granules 

 which are scattered along a delicate thread (Figs. 4, 5, 6). This 

 thread could be traced for some distance in a number of the cells. 

 Often there are two nucleoli present in one nucleus but in most 



