374 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [NOVEMBER 
unbroken passage from trichogyne to carpogenous cell, are very 
great. It must postulate a process, the complexity of which, if 
the writer is not mistaken, is not to be found in the sexual 
reproduction of any organism. So far as the writer is able to 
judge, the union of sexual elements in both the animal and plant 
world is facilitated as much as possible by simplicity of condi- 
tions, z. ¢., the two elements are given every opportunity to unite 
directly, and the direct union of the protoplasmic masses of two 
cells is the characteristic phenomenon of a sexual act. In this 
case it is necessary to assume the transmission of nuclear sub- 
stance through cells which are themselves nucleated, and appar- 
ently are not specialized for this purpose, at least they are not 
materially different in structure from ordinary vegetative cells. 
The evidence upon this last point, it will be remembered, was 
that the cells of the trichophoric apparatus after the withering 
of the trichogynes increase in size and frequently give rise toa 
small filament or bract, thus showing that they have not lost the 
potentialities of vegetative cells. The passage of nuclear sub- 
stance from one cell to another by way of one or more cells 
would be a fact quite contrary, the writer believes, to the usual 
conception ot the individuality of the cell. Botanical science 
as yet furnishes no instance of such a phenomenon. 
The writer carefully studied the cells of the trichophone 
apparatus, endeavoring to find indications of a change in appear” 
ance before and after the development of the cystocarp, but oe 
the many specimens he examined there was nothing to indicate 
a change of structure of the cells themselves, and nothing ie . 
ever seen that could be interpreted as nuclear substance ¢” route 
to the carpogenous cell. th 
It must be apparent to the reader that we have to deal oe 
a very difficult problem. From the observations here recor! e | 
an explanation of sexuality in this genus must overcome ase a 
serious obstacles. Investigators in this field of study ee - 
always considered that the sexuality of the Floridee yer 
established fact. Yet in this genus the cytological conditio : 
of the procarps are such that it is difficult to conceive the™ 
