﻿244 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [april 



Fig, 2^ also represents a pair of nuclei one above the other and 

 both extended toward the coenocentrum, which was fast break- 

 ing down. Fig, 24 is very interesting. In this instance the 

 coenocentrum is the center of a mass of protoplasm considerably 

 larger than the average Qgg- There are two well-developed 

 nuclei, and the form of the cell suggests the probability that 

 material which ordinarily would have gone into two egg origins 

 has been held together in this instance by the influence of an 

 especially large coenocentrum. An illustration of quite the 

 reverse condition is shown in Jig. 2j, and is remarkable. Here 

 we have presented an egg with two coenocentra, and at the side 

 of each a nucleus. There is no doubt from the age of the eggs 

 that the two nuclei in each of these cases are sister nuclei. It 

 is plain that the processes that work for the segmentation of the 

 protoplasm in the oogonium are complex, not all in the influence 

 of the coenocentrum, nor yet all in the general activities of the 

 cytoplasm. 



Give the egg two nuclei with a fair start over their degenerat- 

 ing neighbors, and they seem to be able to exist side by side, 

 not differing, so far as one may see, from the nuclei of uninu- 

 cleate eggs. The two nuclei may lie far apart, as in fig. 26, or so 

 near together that they touch, as in figs. 2j and 27; but in no 

 instance — and I have seen a great many binucleate eggs — have 

 I ever observed them fusing. Trow (1899) reported an instance 

 of nuclear fusion in the egg, but the writer thinks we are justified 

 in waiting for confirmation of this observation before attaching 

 to it the importance given by that author. 



Trinucleate eggs are somewhat rare in Saprolegnia mixta, I 

 have seen hardly more than a dozen, and these were all rather 

 mature examples. I have never been fortunate enough to find 

 young stages, periods comparable to figs. 22-24 of the binucleate 

 eggs. The three nuclei may be grouped close together in the 

 ^Sgifig'-2S)fOvmdLy lie quite separate from one another {fig-^Q)' 

 There is no evidence that they fuse. The rather meager data at 

 hand indicate that when there are three nuclei in an egg they are 

 individually smaller than the single nucleus in an ordinary egg 

 (compare figs. 28 and 2g with figs, 19-21). This is to be 



