258 Stockard : Nectar-glands of Vicia Faba 



that the nucleus sometimes assumed amoeboid shapes and in some 

 entirely disappeared. I find nothing to correspond with these 

 descriptions in my own material, although the slight diversity of 

 form may perhaps be due to amoeboid motion. She further ob- 

 served that the nucleus in one form lost its response to stains, 

 changing from cyanophil to erythrophil, and as I have recorded 

 above in a few cells of mature glands this staining reaction occurred, 

 but in my material it is rather the exception than a general condi- 

 tion, and was found principally in the deeper layers of the gland, 

 Schniewind-Thies also observed that at the height of secretion the 

 cells are much swollen, which to a less degree is the case in this 

 gland, as is seen by comparing figures 9, 11, and 16 with 17, all 

 drawn at the same magnification. 



Huie ('96), studying the changes of the cell-organs of Drosera, 

 finds one most noteworthy result ; on page 424 she states, " The 

 aggregation of the nuclear chromatin into a definite number of 

 V-shaped segments — eight in Drosera — proves that such a 

 change is not a feature of characteristic mitosis, but simply a sign 

 of great activity in the nuclear organs. " Similar phenomena have 

 been observed in animal glands, but a constant number of these 

 chromosomes was not found. Huie's observation is striking if the 

 chromosomes do actually exist in a definite number and this 

 number differs from that typical during mitosis. Such would 

 seem to show that chromatin had the power to arrange itself 

 into different sets of chromosomes for physiological and morpho- 

 logical purposes. In my preparations I was unable to find any 

 such chromatic arrangement at any stage of secretion. She also 

 found cytoplasmic changes in staining reactions ; during secre- 

 tion the cyanophil cytoplasm disappeared. The cyanophil chro- 

 matin increased during this time and after being thrown out from 

 the nucleus it gave rise to new cyanophil cytoplasm. After long- 

 continued secretion the cyanophil cytoplasm was entirely changed 

 into a scanty erythrophil cytoplasm. This seems to establish a 

 comparable relation between nuclear and cytoplasmic material to 

 that which I have shown in the nectar-glands of Vicia Faba. And 

 as Torrey ('02) suggests, a possible explanation of this phenomenon 

 may be that some organic acid is formed during the great meta- 

 bolic activity of the cell. 



