394 GAISER: CRYSTALS IN THE SPADIX OF ANTHURIUM 
(0.1 m.). His interpretation is that the contraction was caused 
by the penetration of the NaCl producing chemical effects upon 
the protoplasm rather than by the greater osmotic pressure of 
the salt solution. This behavior Osterhout has called false 
plasmolysis. He (13) later described such effects from pure 
distilled water. There he explained the result as due to an. 
increase in permeability of the plasma membrane, by which 
some or all of the substances which maintain the osmotic pres- 
sure of the cell diffuse out. An apparent ‘‘coagulation”’ of the 
protoplasm resulted which is not to be confused with true 
plasmolysis. 
In this connection such a figure as FIG. 2 is interesting. The 
small crystal aggregate lies in a large central vacuole surrounded 
by the primordial utricle with nucleus, somewhat shrunken 
from the wall. A delicate strand running from one of the crystals 
to the vacuolar wall is noticeable, having stained yellow with 
orange. On other crystals also there appear very delicate 
similarly-staining extensions. If, as is generally conceded, (see 
Meyer, 10, p. 57; Sharp, 21, p. 135; Osborne, 11, p. 7; and, 
especially for idioplasts, Heinricher, 4, and Schneidler, 20) and 
as is regarded as probable but not proven by Pfeffer (15, p. 82) 
there are soluble protein materials in the vacuole these would 
quite probably be coagulated by fixation and may account for 
such appearances. With our present inadequate knowledge of 
stains and tests for minute quantities of protein in the cell there 
is difficulty in deciding the true nature of such materials. 
It is of interest here to note that the so-called Rosanoft 
crystals, although first found by Rosanoff (16) in the pith of 
Kerria japonica and Ricinus communis, were found but little later 
by him (17) in sacs accompanying the vascular bundles of the 
petioles of the Aroideae, among them Anthurium rubricaule and 
A. Selloum, as well as in the parts of the flower of Encephalartos 
and Nelumbium. His figures show stellate crystals of calcium 
oxalate connected with the cell wall by strands which he claimed 
are cellulose, ‘‘Cellulosebalken,”’ or the crystal may simply 
project from the cell wall. By treating the cell with nitric acid 
which dissolved the oxalate of lime there remained the strands, 
and also what he considered to be the sheath that had surrounded 
the crystal. His figure of a cell so treated shows a shrunken 
mass and suggests that the protoplast may have suffered from 
the same traumatic effects as those described by Osterhout. 
