DECEMBER 1899] MOULTINOCLEAR CELLS 435 
cells of many Monocotyledons (9), the tapetal cells in the sporangia of 
Angiopteris (4), the generative cells of the vessels in Dioscoreaceae (3), 
the older parenchyma cells of Taraxacum officinale (15), the large 
parenchyma cells of Cereus multangularis (18), the young, elongated 
pith-cells of Ochrosia coccinea (18) have all been shown, by various 
observers, to be furnished with a plurality of nuclei. 
All our experience teaches us that wherever a number of nuclei 
appear (whether these be sooner or later separated by a cell-wall, or 
remain together in a multinuclear cell), they arise from the division of 
an original mother-nucleus. When a nucleus divides into two 
daughter-nuclei, it does so by one of two ways. 
Either it becomes constricted here or there, and without more ado 
breaks into two or more parts, or it first passes through a complicated 
series of preparatory stages in which certain of its internal parts 
describe the most curious “figures,” and then only separates into two 
daughter-nuclei. In the former case the division is said to be direct 
or simple fragmentation, in the latter it is described as indirect or 
karyokinetic (7). It is generally supposed that a nucleus which is 
fragmenting has lost the power of dividing activity by karyokinesis. 
The great German cytologist, Strasburger, writing in 1880, says: 
“ According to my entire experience karyokinetic division and frag- 
mentation cannot be brought together, and certainly one cannot replace 
the other” (17). 
Recently, however, the Italian observer, Buscalioni (2), has shown 
that this separation of the two forms of division is by no means neces- 
sarily the case, and that in the development of the embryo-sac of Vicia 
faba, Lupinus, Fritillaria imperialis, and Leucojum vernum, and in the 
laticiferous tubes of Urtica, fragmentation and karyokinesis may take 
place side by side with one another, or the same nucleus may first 
divide directly and then indirectly. Moreover, both Buscalioni and 
Dixon (5), as well as Miss Sargent (14), have observed a curious con- 
dition of the nucleus in which some of the preparatory stages of karyo- 
kinesis are gone through, but before the process is complete the nucleus 
divides directly. Whether this is really an intermediate stage pointing 
to the fundamental identity of the two processes, as the authors appar- 
ently suppose, is doubtful. The facts clearly indicate, however, that 
the two varieties of division are by no means incompatible with one 
another (19). 
Some observations which I recently made on certain vegetative 
cells of some Gramineae give additional support to this view. 
It does not seem to be as widely known among botanists as it 
should be that in certain members of the Gramineae, especially in Zea 
Mays (Indian corn), multinuclear cells of the most pronounced 
character are of frequent occurrence. 
If a section be made through the stem-region of a young plant so 
as to pass through the enveloping leaf-sheaths, the parenchyma cells of 
