64 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [JANUARY 
apprehended the views I put forward in 1895 respecting this struc- 
ture, or the degree of importance I attached to it, I may perhaps be per- 
mitted to explain the position I then took up, especially as I have seen 
no reason seriously to depart from it since that time. The structure 
in question was first seen by me in Pal/lavicinia decipiens. In this form 
the deeply lobed character of the spore mother-cell is marked in the 
highest degree, and I afterwards found the same structure in other Jun- 
germanniales in which the spore mother-cells present similar characters. 
_ Now I expressly regarded the appearance of four centrospheres, 
whether I was able to distinguish centrosomes (Fossombronia) or not 
as bodies contained within them, as a phenomenon /o de correlated 
wrth the lobed character of the cell taken as a whole. But I certainly 
did not regard its persistence throughout the first mitosis as an essen- 
tial condition. It does not so persist in Fossombronia, or in any other 
forms but Padlavicinia decipiens, and far less regularly in Pellia.” In 
summing up the body of evidence, I said (Z. ¢., p. 510): “‘The quadri- 
polar spindles of these Hepaticae are really only the result of the special 
conditions imposed by the configuration of the spore mother-cell.” 
It is clearly, therefore, a misleading rendering of my position, as 
adopted in 1895, to suggest that the quadrupling of the primary chro- 
mosomes and their simultaneous distribution into four groups to form 
the daughter-nuclei constitute the ‘most remarkable features of 
Farmer’s account of the activities of the quadripolar spindle.” * 
From the first, as soon as I began to extend my observations made 
on Pallavicinia decipiens to other species of Hepaticae, I recognized 
that this formed a very special case, and I correlated it with the unusu- 
ally deep lobing of the spore mother-cell. I do not myself at all 
regard the quadrupling of the chromosomes and their simultaneous 
distribution as the point of central interest. It is even possible that 
future investigation, with the help of more modern methods, inay show 
that the two divisions were not so much compressed as I thought in 
1894, and that a cell plate may after all be formed during the first mitosis. 
I may say in passing that I am not surprised that the character of 
the mitosis in P. Zye//ii, described by A. C. Moore, should differ from 
that in P. decipiens. He depicts a slightly four-lobed cell, somewhat 
recalling that of Fossombronia, or Aneura, and I am much interested 
to see that, as one would have anticipated, the general features of the 
karyokinesis resemble those presented by the species of the latter gen- 
era with which I am familiar. A.C. Moore is right in supposing that 
I should interpret his fig. 7 as indicating a less pronounced stage of 
7 Annals of Botany g: 475. ®Moorg, A. C., Bor. Gaz. 35: 388. 1903- 
