87 



canum that hardening fluids like chromic-acetic, sublimate-acetic, 

 Flemming etc. are indispensable for the study of nuclear details. 

 In accordance with the object of the present paper very little 

 will be said about nuclear structures and consequently the 

 staining methods have been of the simplest as usually the 

 establishing of the presence of a particular nucleus was all I 

 wished. For the study of nuclear structures in Gnetum mol- 

 luccanum I have used |very succesfully the Flemming's me- 

 thylviolet-saflfranine-orange stain. 



ORGANOGENY OF THE FEMALE FLOWERS. 



This chapter will contain little or nothing new but as the 

 pictures obtained are very plain it was thought desirable, for 

 completeness sake to reproduce them here. If one cuts a young 

 female inflorescence where the cupulae are yet crowded together 

 one obtains a picture like fig. 8. PI. II. The section here drawn 

 has been obtained by the aid of the microtome but later on, 

 owing to the sclerenchyma present in the most different parts 

 of the flowers one succeeds more quickly by making free-hand 

 sections. It is seen by this section that a ringwall of meristi- 

 matic tissue is formed in the axilla of every cupula. This 

 ringwall is uninterrupted all around the axis. Soon afterwards 

 local growth of this meristematic wall gives rise to the for- 

 mation of the young flowers (fig. 9. PI. II), while paraphy- 

 sal hairs arise at the base of the ringwalls (fig. 9. PI. II). 

 Soon after a slight stretching of the internodes takes place, 

 now flowers in difi'erent stages of development are seen every- 

 where on the top of the ringwalls while the base is occupied 

 by the above mentioned hairs in such a way that by these 

 hairs and by the cupulae themselves the young flowers are 

 very well protected (fig. 10, PI. II). 



That the three floral envelops arise in a centripetal direction 

 as had allready become known through the researches of Bec- 

 CARi, Karsten and Strasburger is well illustrated by fig. 11,12 

 PI. II and fig. 13 PI. III. 



