Autonomy of Plasmatic Membranes 157 



gations of Klebs, they multiply by division. 61 They 

 possess here a wall of their own which resembles the 

 walls of ordinary vacuoles in its great power of resistance. 

 Klebs observed how the pulsation may continue for a 

 long time after the rest of the protoplast has been killed 

 by some mechanical interference. The view that, in 

 systole, the contents of these vacuoles are expelled into 

 the surrounding tissues, while, in diastole, fluid is taken 

 from the protoplast, is probably generally accepted for 

 rhizopods and flagellates. My own observation con- 

 vinced me of its correctness in Actinophrys Sol. The 

 same opinion may also apply to the pulsating vacuoles in 

 the plant-world. 62 



7. The Relation Between the Plasmatic Membranes and 

 the Granular Plasm 



While the investigations of the last two decades have 

 thrown a clear light on the organs of the protoplasts just 

 discussed, the relation between plasmatic membrane and 

 granular plasm is still completely in the dark. In our 

 knowledge of the mode of origin of the nuclei, tropho- 

 plasts, and vacuoles, the theory of heredity, as I have 

 tried to explain in this Section, finds its indispensable 

 basis. On the mutual relation of the two other men- 

 tioned parts of the protoplast, no facts have yet been 

 found, which might be utilized for the theory. 



As already mentioned, what the nature of that relation 

 is, is certainly not of essential importance for the 

 hypothesis of intracellular pangenesis. Yet it remains an 

 important question whether granular plasm and plasmatic 

 membrane are mutually as independent as the granular 



61 Klebs, G. Arbeiten Bot. Inst. Tubingen, Bd. I. p. 250. ff. 

 62 Pfeffer, Pflanzenphysiologie, pp. 399-401. 



