81Ö 



but also of cell contents, the uiicrosfope can only detect line granules, 

 evidently corresponding to 'the microsomes of the protoplasm, which 

 are not dissolved during the cylolysis I could not find back the 

 cell nuclei in the gum. but in the cells of the not yet cytolised 

 phloem bundles, they are neither perceptible. As under normal cir- 

 cumstaiu'cs the gum does not tlow out, its volume must be about 

 as great as that of the phloem bundles which are cytolised. It is. 

 however, certain that the capability of the gum to swell up by 

 imbibition is much greater than that of the cell-tissue which gave 

 rise to its formation. It seems thus certain that imbibition with 



Fig. 3 (360). Gum canal with surrounding ; 

 g2J gum; xl xylum bundles, unchanged; j)/? non- 

 dissolved cells of the phloem bundles; cd thread- 

 shaped cells in a gum canal, originating from the 

 phloem bundles. 



safticient access of water must lead to a pei-ceptible ])ressure and 

 also some thickening of the fruit-wall. This must promote the 

 opening of the fruit as well as the remarkable detaching of the 

 stone, although the required mechanical power for these processes 

 must, no doubt, chietly be the tension of the tissue of the paren- 

 chyma of the fruit-wall existing independently of the gummosis. 

 Finally the stone is found quite loose within the fleshy shell, which 

 mostly opens like a bivalvate mollusk. but sometimes shows three 

 or four fractui-es. The vascular bundles, which pass from the fruit- 

 llesh into the stone, are thereby torn off clear from the stone. At 

 the base the separation seems provided for by an intercepting layer, 

 as at the fall of leaves. 



