IRON COMPOUNDS IN ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE CELLS. 251 
ing in the hyphe, in the basidia, and in the spores of the 
various species, in the form of small elements which are 
brought into view only when alcoholic material is acted on by 
very dilute solutions of hematoxylin. Their number in a 
hypha varies, but in each basidium there is at first only one, 
which, when the sterigmata are being formed, divides, the 
daughter nuclei undergoing division also, sometimes a 
second time, each of the four or eight thus resulting passing 
through the tubes of the sterigmata into the spores at the 
end of the latter. When the spores are mature they thus 
contain, according to the species, one or two very minute 
nuclei, while the basidia at this stage contain none. Wager 
also found nuclei in the basidia, but maintains that the spores 
do not contain any until after the formation of the thick spore- 
membrane. 
It is an easy matter to demonstrate in the hyphe and some- 
times in the basidia and in the mature spores of leucosporous 
Hymenomycetes,! the structures regarded by Strasburger and 
Rosenvinge as nuclei, but, as was the case in Hy phelia ter- 
restris, such elements contain only a small portion of the chro- 
mophilous substance, for when preparations are made, as recom- 
mended by Strasburger, with very dilute solutions of hema- 
toxylin, the cytoplasm also stains though not quite so deeply 
as the minute nuclei, especially in young hyphe. This and 
other staining reactions indicate that chromatin is dissolved in 
the cytoplasm, a conclusion borne out by the results of experi- 
ments with the glycerine and sulphide mixture and with acid 
alcohols, in which case the hyphal elements of a very young 
stage of growth give a reaction for iron diffused throughout 
the cytoplasm, but when the spores are formed the hyphal cells 
and their shrunken nuclei rarely give a reaction for iron. At 
this stage also, in sections of the lamelle, a reaction for iron is 
obtained in the hymenium and in the spores, while the hyphal 
elements of the “trama’’ appear free from the metal. If the 
spores and the basidia are teased out and mounted in the 
The pigment in the spores of the other divisions of the Hymenomycetes 
greatly obscure the reaction obtained with the glycerine and sulphide mixture. 
