1913] MERRIMAN—SPIROGY RA 323 
areolae. ‘These bodies may be considered but as centers of conden- 
sation, where by absorption the finer granular matter is transformed 
to the denser state. The areola around the denser bodies, as well 
as that around the entire mass, may be of no morphological sig- 
nificance, as FIscHER (7) obtained, when staining precipitates of 
deutero-albumose, all stages between a deeply stained central point 
and an areola of perceptible diameter. - 
It was not until drawings had been made of the thin sections and 
until the second year of this investigation that it occurred to me 
to make whole mounts of the’ dissected nuclei. These presented 
so different an appearance from the thin sections as to warrant an 
entirely different interpretation of the stages which show striations 
of granules and longitudinal arrangement of the deeply stained: 
bodies. When such nuclei in stages just before and up to the com- 
plete dissolution of the nuclear membrane are examined, a contin- 
uous spireme including both kinds of material can be seen distinctly 
(fig. 9). The coils of this spireme are connected by anastomosing 
bridges. The deeply stained bodies, which seemed irregularly 
disposed in the thin sections (figs. 10, 13), in the whole mounts 
appear to lie with the granules in a spireme; a spireme, hence, not 
homogeneous, but consisting of material longitudinally arranged and 
of varying density, representing the pachyneme stage described by 
investigators on other plants. 
This spireme, however, appears to be not greatly dissimilar to 
that seen in Allium in the prophase. In Allium there was more 
regularity in the arrangement of the chromatin masses and linin 
forming the spireme: In S pirogyra (fig. 11) also an apparent 
longitudinal division of the spireme is present. This parallelism 
of the threads has been. described by Dicpy (5) in Galionia. In 
Trillium, GrécorrE (8) has interpreted it as an apparent splitting 
caused by progressive alveolization of the chromosomes; in Allium, 
Bonnevie (2) has attributed similar appearances as due to the 
chromatin gathering at the peripheral portion of the chromosome, 
forming a spiral coil within; while the writer (10) in Allium 
regarded the apparent split as the result of an aggregation of 
granules forming a quadripartite thread. 
The great similarity of this spireme to that described by other 
