86 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [AUGUST 
coenocentrum, is entirely devoid of nuclei. They surround the 
central region, lying wholly within the periplasm, and are 
usually in metaphase. In this species, as in A. Portulacae, the 
mitosis is nearly completed in the periplasm, and the daughter 
nuclei do not begin to push back into the ooplasm until the 
chromosomes have retreated from the equatorial region of the 
spindle. It is also apparent that only those nuclear figures 
which are appropriately oriented contribute daughter nuclei to 
the ooplasm, and that only one of the pair gains entrance. 
From their mode of entrance it follows, as in A. Portulacae, that 
the chromatic content of the nuclei is situated at the end most 
distant from the sister nucleus. The nuclei number about fifty, 
and the tendency toward lowering the number that is occasion- 
ally seen in A. Portulacae is not apparent here. 
The primary oospheric nuclei now undergo a second mitosis, 
which is clearly distinguishable from the first by the character 
of the chromatic figure, which is similar to that described for A. 
Portulacae. The fact that the second mitosis involves only the 
oospheric, not the periplasmic nuclei also distinguishes it from 
the first (jigs. 32, 34). 
The definiteness with which ooplasm and periplasm are 
delimited at and after zonation (figs. 28-31) precludes any pos- 
sibility of confounding pre- and post-zonation stages. The clear- 
ness of the nuclei, which are seen as they enter the oosphere 
(fig. 29), and which can be followed through all the stages of 
the second mitosis (figs. 32, 34), renders it equally certain that 
in A. Tragopogonis the oosphere is multinucleate. So far there 
has been no deviation from the course followed by A. Bliti and 
A. Portulacae. 
These potential female nuclei appear to differ from each 
other in no important respect, unless it be in their distance from 
the coenocentrum, yet under the usual conditions only one of 
them is destined to function as a sexual nucleus. A study of 
later stages shows that one (or very rarely two or three) of these 
nuclei comes to lie in close contact with the coenocentrum, and 
there grows (figs. 35-37) until it becomes many times its former 
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