38 GENUS P.\! i \viri\lA 



could be sometimes seen, and at the extremity of the rays 

 of the spindle was a body which may have been a centrosphere. The 

 material, however, was not very \vell stained, and the nature of tlu--e 

 bodies was not perfectly clear. As no stages of mitosis were se< 

 remains to be seen whether the chrmosomes are four in number, as in 

 P. dccif r | I | ). or eight, a- in /'. nnlicul*'- 



In the latter species (Fig. 21, A, ), there are eight chromosomes, 

 thick, somewhat kidney-shaped bodies : and instead of the quadripolar 

 spindle there is a conspicuous bipolar spindle of the usual form. The 

 chromosomes divide and arrange themselves in two groups which move 

 to the poles of the spindle, where without assuming the form of a resting 

 nucleus they divide again, and a second bipolar spindle is formed. It 

 was supposed that as the result of a reduction division there would be 

 only four chromosomes in the young spores ; but there is no question 

 that eight are present in most cases, at least, and none were seen where 

 the number was four. A similar condition was found by Farmer in /'. 



-tens, and it is also the case in Calycularia radiculosa. (See Camp- 

 bell [2].) 



It still remains to be seen where the reduction division occurs in these 

 liverworts. 



