Stopes and Fujii, The nutritive relations of the surrounding tissues etc. 21 



slightly higher forms before they pass into the egg, still however 

 in a soluble form. 



What then are the „Hofmeister Körperchen"? There are 

 frequently vacuoles round the simple proteiu grains of the Cycads 

 and Ginkgo 1 ) and further we have observed starch and protein 

 grains in close proximity in the egg cells of Ginkgo, Zamia etc. 

 In Pinus the „Hofmeister Körperchen" are more conspicuous, and 

 contain protein grains and often also starch grains in the later 

 stages of development. It appears to us to be highly possible that 

 the vacuoles surrounding these grains of food stuffs may have 

 a digestive capacity, and may therefore have much the same 

 function and origin as those developped round food particles in 

 unicellular organisms such as Amoeba etc. In the general cytoplasm 

 of the egg there are also numbers of graiiules many of which are 

 protein grains identical in chemical reactions, form, and size, with 

 those in the nutritive vacuoles, and it may be that they are stored 

 there temporarily and are awaiting their turn for digestion. 



Possibly the reason that these "nutritive", or "digestive" 

 vacuoles have appeared to so many workers to be nuclei, or to 

 have the appearance of nuclei, may be that in general they have 

 judged them chiefly from their staining properties with usual stains, 

 and from their superficial appearance. In microtome sections stained 

 with Triple stain, the large protein grains certainly stain hke nucleoli, 

 and the small grains give the appearance of the nuclear net work. 

 But if one uses fresh material, or band sections of alcohol material, 

 stained them with acid methyl green' 2 ) one sees a considerable 

 difference in the staining properties of these grains and of true nuclei. 

 Also the result of artificial digestion of the protein grains with 

 pepsin glycerine indicates that they are a different form of protein 

 substance from that composing the nucleolus. We may suggest that 

 many of the tiny granules one finds always in large quantities in 

 these vacuoles (cf. tig. 10) may have the nature of zymogens or 

 proenzymes for both proteases and diastases and may be the source 

 of the digestive properties of the vacuoles. 



That the nutritive vacuoles are less developed and conspicuous 

 in the Cycads and Ginkgo than in the higher Gymnosperms may 

 be correlated with the fact that in the former the jacket cells are 

 more highly developed than in the latter, and also with a certain 

 difference in the form and properties of the food stuffs bronght 

 into the egg cell. 



Although these views are the outcome of the Observation of a 

 birgt 1 nnmber of facts, there is perforce much in them that is 

 Suggestion to and that may be useful only in the present State of 

 our knowledge and require modification as we continue our researches. 



1 \ It is interesting to uote that Goroschankin calla the proteiu grains 

 in Ginkgo „Hofmeister Körperchen" in the description of plates in his russian 

 paper. (Wiss. Schriften d. Moskauer Univ. 1880. PL VIII. fig. 87a.) 



2 ) Zacharias. E., „Ueber Nachweis n. Vorkommen v. Nuclein". (Bericht. 

 d. I). Bot. Ges. Bd. XVI. p. 194 and 197.) We used the stain both with and 

 without the addition of sodium sulphate. 



