148 FisHer: SEED DEVELOPMENT IN THE GENUS PEPEROMIA 
dance may indicate that they have some phylogenetic suggestion. 
It may be an approach to a condition of more than one ovule in a 
carpel, and may be of atavistic significance. 
More than one ovule in a carpel was the prevailing condition 
in the ancestors of the Piperaceae, if the theory of Lotsy (42, 
pp. 487-513) or of Hallier (27) be accepted, for both these 
authors believe that the Piperaceae have descended from the 
Magnoliaceae. Of this latter family of ten or eleven genera, all but 
one genus (I/licium) have more than one ovulein each carpel. And 
the same thing is true, if we accept the phylogenetic view embodied 
in the classification of the Engler-Gilg Syllabus (18, p. 157). 
The Saururaceae, which according to that grouping is the lowest 
family of the Piperales, has multiovulate carpels, and the carpels 
of certain of the Casuarinaceae, the family next below the 
Piperales, may sometimes contain two ovules. 
Schwere (65), working on Taraxacum, found a case in which 
two embryo sacs developed in one nucellus, each giving rise to 4 
normal embryo. Phylogenetically considered, he pointed out 
that we have here one megasporangium with two megaspores, and 
he considers it an atavistic appearance, an illustration of Hof- 
meister’s ingenious and masterly work on the genetic relationship 
between Phanerogams and Cryptogams. 
Hofmeister (29) considered the abnormal division of the 
nucellus in Morus alba as a monstrosity, although it was of frequent 
occurrence. The cases of Morus differ from those of Peperomia 
in that the two parts or lobes of the nucellus of the former are 
always both enclosed by the same inner integument, while in the 
latter the two parts or lobes of the nucellus are never enclosed by 
the same integument. 
Braun (3) refers to these cases of Morus (Hofmeister, 29) 
as false polyembryony (undchte Polyembryonie), and they have 
been so classified by later authors (Ernst, 19; Coulter & Cham- 
berlain, 14). The reason for this is not plain, for there is n° 
statement in Hofmeister’s brief description that any embryos were 
really initiated. Since no case was found in P. verticillata, im 
which more than one embryo was initiated in the ovule, it is in- 
appropriate to consider this a case of polyembryony, or pseudo- 
polyembryony, as it has been called. 
