CHAPTER XIII 

 INHERITANCE IN GAMETOPHYTES 



Thus far the discussions have dealt with inheritance 

 in sporophytes; in fact, genetics practically never con- 

 siders gametophytes, through which inheritance must 

 pass from one sporophyte to the next. The reasons 

 for this neglect are obvious. Practically all of our land 

 vegetation is made up of sporophytes and therefore 

 practically all of our experimental material has been 

 sporophytes. Furthermore, gametophytes are incon- 

 spicuous (out of sight in seed plants), hard to get at, 

 hard to work with, and apparently of no economic 

 importance. Besides, in animals, as is well known, the 

 generation equivalent to the gametophyte of plants is 

 represented only Ly a few cell divisions in the matura- 

 tion of gametes. In other words, the gametophyte 

 has no significance in the animal kingdom; and since 

 inheritance in plants is of interest to most investigators 

 chiefly because it throws some light upon inheritance in 

 animals, there has been no demand for any knowledge 

 of inheritance in gametophytes. 



This means that this subject has not been studied, but 

 it may be considered here briefly. It may be admitted 

 that our ideas of genetics have been fairly well developed 

 without including the gametophyte in inheritance, but 

 the question is whether they cannot be developed better 

 and perhaps more quickly by including the gameto- 

 phyte. There are two reasons that may be suggested: 



123 



