THEORY OF SFX — ITS NATURE AND ORIGIN. 



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of crystals may be often observed to occur. Crystals are, how- 

 ever, usually regarded as accumulations of waste products, 

 and these anther crystals are, in fact, comparable to urinary 

 deposits. Such accumulations do not, however, occur, at least 

 to any similar extent, in the embryo-sac or in the female organs, 

 in spite of the homology in male and female development. 

 They occur as results of katabolism, where we would naturally 

 expect them — in the tissue, of male organs. 



A Stonewort {Charafragilis), showing in two stages, adult and 

 embryonic, the female organ {b), and the male organ (a). — 

 From Sachs, after Pringsheim. 



In the stoneworts Chara or Nitella there is, as is well 

 known, an alternation between nodal and internodal cells. 

 The internodal cells are actively vegetative, and go on 

 increasing in size; they do not divide, and may be jusdy 

 regarded as emphatically anabolic. The nodal cells, on the 

 other hand, are much smaller, and do divide. That is to say 

 they are relatively more katabolic. 



A crucial test of the present theory thus suggests itself. 



