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smaller quantity than in the sexual cells of the same plant. <As a rule it is 
not at first arranged radially about the nucleus, but forms a delicate weft 
which may be closely applied to the nuclear membrane. Not infrequently 
a few radiating kinoplasmic fibres are present in addition to the weft. 
Frequently, and especially in the earlier stages, this weft is so delicate 
and equally distributed about the nucleus that the most careful staining 
is necessary to detect its presence, and that for this reason it may be 
easily overlooked. 
In many eases the fibres of this weft are collected in larger and looser 
masses at different parts on the nuclear membrane, when the weft is 
more easily demonstrated. The kinoplasmic fibres of the weft form a 
multipolar spindle which is rapidly transformed into the typical bipolar 
type. In the cells of the ovule of Helleborus the cap-like masses of kino- 
plasmic fibres upon diametrically opposite sides of the nucleus is often 
more readily seen than in Liliwm. 
Recent investigations which tend to confirm the above statement, have 
shown that these accumulations of kinoplasmic fibres are characteristic 
of a definite phase in the development of the spindle in certain yegeta- 
tive cells. 
The results recently published by Hof', which are in accord with the 
foregoing statement, have contributed much valuable and additional data 
to our knowledge of the formation of the karyokinetic spindle in higher 
plants. 
Hof finds further that the anlage of the spindle may be bipolar from 
the beginning, but in Vicia faba and Pteris sp. along with this type, the 
monoaxial multipolar anlage occurs.  , 
Thus no fundamental difference exists between the origin of the 
spindle in vegetative and reproductive cells of the higher plants, save that 
in the latter (pollen, and embryosac-mother-cells) the anlage of the spindle 
is multipolar, with little or no definite indication of the future longitudinal 
axis, while in the former the bipolar anlage may occur side by side with 
the multipolar mono-axial type. It may be, therefore, as stated by Hof, 
that “es ergiebt sich, so scheint mir, aus den bisherigen Untersuchungen, 
dass ein principieller Unterschied zwischen den multipolaren und bi- 
polaren Anlagen der Kernspindel nicht gegeben ist, beide Vorgiinge sind 
dureh die monaxial-multipolaren mit einander vereint.” 
‘Hof, A.C.: “Histologische Studien an Vegetationspunkten,’’ Botanisches Centralbl. 
Bd. LXXVI, 1898. 
