VOLUME XLVI 



NUMBER 3 



Botanical Gazette 



SEPTEMBER igoS 



LIBRARY 

 NEW YOKK 

 BOTAM- 



QARDEN. 



THE STAMINATE CONE AND MALE GAMETOPHYTE 

 OF PODOCARPUS 



CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE HULL BOTANICAL LABORATORY 114 



L. Lancelot Burlingame 

 (WITH NINE FIGURES AND PLATES VIII AND IX) 



Knowledge of the gametophytes of the Podocarpineae is at 

 the present time limited to that contained in three brief papers. In 

 1902 Coker (3) published an account of two species of Podocarpus; 

 in June 1907 Jeffrey and Chrysler (5) added some new facts 

 concerning Podocarpus and Dacrydium; and in September of the 

 same year Miss Young (14) gave an excellent resume of the sub- 

 ject of the male gametophyte and added several new and interest- 

 esting details for Dacrydium. Coker records that in Podocarpus 

 coriacea there are produced two primary prothallial cells, both of 

 which may divide amitotically ; a tube nucleus ; and a primary sperma- 

 togenous cell, which gives rise ts a stalk cell and a body cell. The 

 body cell undergoes nuclear division and one of the nuclei is then 

 extruded from the cytoplasm, leaving a single functional male cell. 

 Jeffrey and Chrysler add to this the interesting details that from 

 the two primary prothallial cells there may arise by subsequent 

 division as many as eight prothallial cells. Of still greater interest 

 is the record of the "proliferation" of the primary spermatogenous 

 cell, whereby there arise three cells placed transversely, the middle one 

 of which is considerably larger than either of the others. Miss Young 

 reports that in Dacrydium one or both of the primary prothallial cells 

 may divide once. From the primary spermatogenous cell arise two 

 cells, one of which is usually sterile, the other of which functions as 

 the body cell. The interesting observation is made that there is a 



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