42 
maining nuclei come together in the middle of the sac and fuse. 
There seems to be no difficulty at all in the interpretation 
of the phenomena on the basis of our schemes. Vacuolation 
does not begin before the eight-nucleate stage, so the four- 
nucleate stage cannot represent anything else but four mega- 
spores. Each of these four gives rise to a primary micropylar 
and a primary chalazal nucleus, and further by a second divi- 
sion to four nuclei two of which belong to the micropylar and 
two to the chalazal end. The two micropylar ones arrange 
themselves as egg and synergid, the chalazal ones as two po- 
lars. The mature embryosac thus contains four egg-apparatus 
of two cells each, and eight polar nuclei, corresponding to the 
formula AAAA—IIIa—3b (fig. 9, p. 43 
This conception is confirmed by Jonnson’s remark about the 
synergid that “the position of the spindles in certain cases 
seems to indicate that this is a sister to the egg“ and further 
by Brown’s (1908) description of other Peperomia’s, which all 
show the same development. Moreover the tendency to the 
reduction II[la—3b among the Piperaceae is demonstrated by 
Pam (1915) mentioning abnormal sacs of this type in the usually 
eight-nucleate Piper subpeltatum. 
Peperomia hispidula has almost the same development. Accor- 
ding to Jonnson (1907) however, only the micropylar egg-appa- 
ratus remains intact, while the other three “micropylar groups* 
do not come to the formation of cell-walls, thus leaving all 
nuclei free, which results in their fusing with the eight polars. 
In the full-grown embryo-sac only the egg, one synergid and 
one huge primary endosperm nucleus are left. This however does 
not affect the AAAA—IIla—3b character as shown by the 
development. 
Peperomia Sintensii and the other species described by Brown 
(1908) and Hivser (1916) all show the same development. It 
is not necessary to repeat everything in detail. The tetrasporic 
character is emphasized by the fact that in the first division 
of the embryosac-mothercell of P. Sintensii a evanescent wall 
is formed, while “when the two nuclei divide into four, plates 
are formed on both spindles.‘ Moreover in P. resediflora and 
