1887. | BOTANICAL GAZETTE, 139 
BRIEFER ARTICLES. 
“Crazy” pollen of the bell-wort (with plate VI.)--The pollen of the great- 
flowered bell-wort ( Uvularia grandiflora Sm.) is of good size, th coated, 
nearly colorless (yellow in mass) and in many ways well adapted for use in 
laboratory work with students. The two nuclei may be easily demon- 
strated by using. methyl violet or methyl green. The best reagent, how- 
ever, out of a large number employed, is azo-rubin when used in a very 
dilute solution. Picric acid brings out the smaller nucleus in a very 
satisfactory manner. The larger nucleus is nearly as long as the pollen 
grain ( 55u-65p )and usually occupies its center. The appearance of the 
pollen after treatment is shown in figures 14-17, plate VI. The larger 
nucleus is many times longer than broad, and somewhat bent and 
pointed at each end. The smaller nucleus is oval shaped and not more 
than one-eighth as large as the long nucleus. It occupies a nearly central 
position in the pollen grain, 
These Uvularia pollen grains germinate quickly in a medium sugar 
solution and exhibit a fine circulation of protoplasm within the larger 
s. In germination a tube arises seemingly at any point upon the 
surface of the grain. It as frequently grows from the side as from the 
end, and occasionally there are two tubes from the same grain when 
growing under ordinary conditions (figures 14, 15 and 17). Large 
numbers of pollen grains were found with tubes a millimetre in length’ 
when first removed from the anthers. It was therefore not necessary 
to wait upon the cultures for a supply of germinating pollen. In the 
culture medium some tubes obtained a length of two millimetres in 
fifteen hours. In many instances the large nucleus was found in the 
tube, and in one case it was in the somewhat enlarged tips of the tube. 
in figure 18. The 
i defined rows which 
they passed by the nucleus upon one side and turned and returned upon 
the opposite side. The cyclosis was quite rapid, and it is to be regretted 
that measurements of the movements of the granules were not recorded. 
_ One of the culture slides lost a large part of the nourishing sugar solu- 
tion by absorption into the pieces of surrounding blotting paper, and the 
pollen grains upon the under surface of the suspended glass cover pro- 
duced tubes of very strange abnormal forms. The germination of a 
dozen such grains is shown in figures 1-18, These grains were selected 
from among hundreds of others as exhibiting the more extraordinary 
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