210 The Botanical Gazette. [May, 
pearance of the accompanying bodies which present such a 
resemblance to synergide and cause a more complete like- 
ness to the egg-apparatus of the other end of the sac, is 
probably accidental. This figure, like the other figures of 
the plates, was drawn with an Abbé camera and Zeiss 2™" im- 
mersion lens, but the figure fails to show the extent of the 
resemblance. Lest it might be imagined that I have inverted 
the embryo-sac and mistaken the endosperm nucleus for the 
nucleus of this cell, I have drawn in fig. 4, the egg-apparatus 
of this same sac. It is to be noted here that all this devel- 
opment of the antipodal region has preceded the fusion of the 
two polar nuclei (fig. 4 pz).to form the endosperm-nucleus. 
It might also be added that the length of this sac is double 
that of ordinary sacs. 
Additional evidence will doubtless be demanded by many, 
but the frequent occurrence of this peculiar antipodal cell in 
Aster Nove-Anglia leads me to believe that other instances 
of this phenomenon will be discovered. Indeed, like the un- 
noticed centrosomes, they may even now be awaiting obser- 
vation on the slides of earlier investigators. The more 
conservative may ask that the history of this alleged odsphere 
be traced at least a few steps further before they allow its 
right to the name. Let fertilization and the formation of an 
embryo be observed. It is to be regretted that my material 
was Collected for the purpose of studying the earlier develop- 
ment of the embryo sac rather than the formation of the 
embryo itself, and consequently the search for another antip- 
odal odsphere, to say nothing of these later stages, is neces- 
sarily deferred. 
Since reading Strasburger’s recent discussion of the peri- 
odic reduction of chromosomes, * I have been curious to know 
the number which prevails in the nuclei of these antipodal 
cells, but as my material was collected late in October, after 
several severe frosts, mitotic figures were very infrequent and 
I have not yet been able to obtain any reliable results. 
Guignard’s statement, that in lilies the nucleus which gives 
rise to the egg-apparatus is constant in its number of chro- 
mosomes, while that which produces the antipodal cells 
varies, is of interest in considering this irregular region. 
*On the periodic reduction of chromosomes in livi i a 
of Botany 8: 281. Ag. 1894. in living org 
